Bunge Global Aktie

We're good to go. All right. Perfect. So welcome back next on stage. We're pleased to have Bunge's management team with us after missing out for a couple of years given the Viterra transaction in the past. Now with us today are Greg Heckman, the company's CEO; as well as John Neppl, Bunge's CFO. And with no further ado, let's get into it on the questions.

Now maybe starting with the broader landscape, obviously, ongoing conflict Middle East and the Black Sea regions, we're seeing shift in global trade dynamics as well as weather concerns, which might be drought in Europe, the super El Nino. There's a lot of uncertainty, which seems to be the new normal. Now how does the addition of Viterra make Bunge better positioned to navigate such volatility and actually continue to deliver for customers and shareholders?

Thanks for having us today. Great to be here again. Great to be on stage again with you. It really has helped us in every way. I think there's been no better capabilities added for our risk management for our customers, both the farmers and consumers of feed, food and fuel than the diversification that we got with the merger, with the combination of Viterra and Bunge because we are now in every key producing region. We touch more farmers directly than anyone else. This gave us not only the diversification across geography, but we now have diversification across grains and oilseeds that we need to serve our customers. So whether it's the challenge that you mentioned on whether it's trade war, the actual wars, weather issues. We just have more origins, more destinations, a better, more complete team in order to be able to solve those problems.

Okay. So as we take down and maybe look into the second half and your adjusted EPS outlook, which was slightly raised during the second quarter call, what gave you the confidence in terms of the EPS uptick? And where do you see the biggest factors that could drive maybe reaching the higher end of it? And what are the risks for you would say this could be then in the lower end?

Do you want to start?

Yes, I can start. Sure. So look, we had -- as we got through Q2, and we looked at the balance of the year. Number 1 is we felt very good about where we performed up through the first half. And so I think we felt like we had some good momentum in the business. We looked ahead at the balance of the year, and we saw good S&D drivers. Ultimately, RVO clarity hadn't been totally resolved yet, but we felt like the industry was ramping up and there was good demand for soybean oil. There was good demand for meal. We saw improving results in various places in the world and I think the resilience of our team and how they looked at the balance of the year, even though maybe a little bit less clarity and visibility into Q4, we felt like Q3 was largely locked at that point and saw a path to get to the number we gave, the $9.25, $9.75 range. And so yes, I think really, I think a lot of it had to do with what we felt like the range of likely outcomes for the balance of the year, we felt pretty good about where we were.

I think it's also worth noting. We just passed a year in July since closing the transaction and while it took a couple of years to get through regulatory, which was very helpful for the integration planning, and I think it's helped the integration go so smooth. But remember, the commercial teams couldn't start to work on commercial synergies start thinking about optimizing the footprint, making sure that we have the right people in the right roles until we close the transaction. So we've been doing that work for the last year. And so also, as we've gotten some of the reps together with the team, in a challenging environment. Also, you remember Viterra was private. And so forecasting not as important as for a public company. So as we brought the teams together and the systems and processes and begin to do that work, that's also been helpful in giving us visibility and confidence in going forward.

Okay. So sticking to that and obviously, a big driver of results right now is a fairly strong setup in soybean processing. So you've laid out earlier in the year that $45, $47 crush margin as a mid-cycle assumption. How sensitive is actually that level for like biofuel policy and versus just underlying food, fuel demand without policy? And where would you say we're shaking out right now compared to that baseline assumption?

Yes, I can start, Greg.

Sure.

Yes, it was somewhat of a -- the first thing is a $45 to $47 sort of a framework that we built thinking about history. We look back 5 years what were the dynamics. We saw highs and lows in a 5-year period. So we looked at averages and said, okay, in all the regions we operate globally, what were the dynamics during that 5-year period? And what do we feel like probably was as best we can figure out kind of a normalized level of margin. And then looking forward, what did we expect structurally? Was there an inherent change in a given geography that might drive a structural change going forward?

And as well, we looked at RVO policy and everything else, and we kind of came up with what we felt like in each region was ultimately a likely ongoing average margin also to where would it need to be to provide the right return on assets to incent expansion if it was needed at some point. So we look at all these factors, a little bit of science. We plugged that into the model and then obviously, a big piece of that or a portion that can impact that is certainly the policy around RVO, biofuel policy in general globally.

I think today, we look at it in the U.S. and what's come out recently has been -- is certainly performing above what we consider kind of that average baseline. We're above that in the U.S. and Canada, for example, but there's parts of the world where we're below it. So today, on weighted average, we feel pretty good about kind of we're there in total, just the pieces are a little bit different than maybe how we modeled it. But again, those are going to change, continue to change. But I think we feel like that's a pretty good guideline for how we think about it going forward.

Probably one of the other important things when we were modeling going forward and what was different. I mean when you think about Bunge pre-Viterra, we were the largest global oilseed crusher but we were really underrepresented in Argentina. In Viterra, they had the largest, lowest cost soy crushing facility sitting in Argentina, Renova, but they were running at really on kind of an island. We were able to plug that into our global system. And now as we do our analysis and we're looking at where we commit crush and we're running our global soy crush origination, processing, refining and distribution system we're able to run our value chains end-to-end with Argentina in there. And of course, as we all know, the business environment and the direction that the farmer has gotten Argentina has continued to improve overall. And now with bringing balance to our overall global soy system, it's been great.

Just real quick following up on -- you've mentioned it early on with the RVOs and clearly, that kind of like is a different environment now because we just got the biofuel clarity, which is very much necessary. We saw recently just about a week ago, the SRE changes. So maybe help us understand a little bit what the exemptions mean in general and how it impacts the biofuel policy for this year and next year, just broadly industry but also for you guys in more particular.

Well, certainly, as an industry and as I'll say, a partner of the farmer because we spent a lot of time working with the farm groups and our industry groups. Together, we didn't want to see any more SREs in what were assumed to be like to be granted back when EPA first modeled this. But ultimately, so we lobby hard against increased SREs because we didn't feel like they were good for the farmer. And really in the spirit of what -- where we were headed. But ultimately, they were granted, but through a lot of work and conversation and with our industry groups with the right representatives that we have and the farmer groups, we were able to get all those reallocated. The administration agreed to reallocate those to '26 and '27, which, in effect, kind of undo a lot of SREs that were granted.

So for us and for the farmers and for our industry, it gives certainty that there's still a commitment there to the policy, and it keeps these levels at where the industry is now operating at full capacity and allows us with certainty, not only us, but the renewable diesel producers to go ahead and operate run hard. So it's pretty critical, and we're very pleased with where we are today. Now we got to get it finalized and then it's on to '27 or '28 and '29 and set 3. So work never stops.

Got it. So switching from soybeans to the softseed part of the equation, which obviously has also done fairly well in recent quarters and you have pretty solid expectations for the second half. How much is here really structural changes and just global oil demand versus maybe what are temporary factors like still disruption in the Black Sea, those relatively tight sunflower supplies and just geopolitical issues all over? Would you -- what is like structural? What's more temporal?

I'd start by again talking about the combination it's -- a lot of this is structural because while we had a good softseed crushing platform at Bunge, Viterra had a real nice softseed crushing, but their softseed origination is excellent. And so as we were able to bring both the canola rapeseed and the sunseed crushing together, it gave us not only the diversification of having sunseed in Argentina, and the Black Sea and being able to serve those customers year round and deal with any disruptions. It gave us more balance on canola and rapeseed but the origination capabilities, now we have the full chain much more, I would say, much more similar to in soy, where we have the full scale of the origination to not only serve our crushing facilities and then being prepared for the refining and the distribution, but also being able to serve the industry. And in a world where it is very complex, that's been really key to our soft crush.

Okay. So you've also talked about it recently that there might be some trade normalization between China, Australia as well as just global canola flows might be changing. So how should investors think about the earnings opportunity created by that fully integrated origination processing footprint that you now bring within it Canada, Australia, Europe, when these trade patterns shift. So what does that -- how does the Bunge platform leverage that?

Yes. When the canola seed couldn't go to China out of Canada. We -- some of that, we then move to Europe. Of course, we crushed as hard as we could in country. As you see that shift, and we're able to move Australia to China again, having that destination open to both origins, we can then drive that off of the economics. But again, where Australia serves it if that seed needs to stay home in Canada, then our crushing is there to not only take advantage of that, but then it opens our ports up to handle more wheat or barley.

So I think it's just the diversification again among the footprint between what needs to stay at home in each of these markets to be consumed versus what needs to be exported. And that's the granularity and capillarity that we now have globally at origin and at destination to be able to get the farmer to market when they want to get to market and to be able to hedge those end consumers when they want to hedge.

Okay. So if you look at your soybean and your softseed processing businesses, are there areas where you see still opportunities to further invest to further grow the business? And what would be like kind of like return criteria if you would to deploy capital just to continue leverage what you have there? Are there missing -- are there some blank spots still that you would like to explore? Or do you think you're at the sweet spot already?

Look, we've got the critical mass and the balance we needed. That being said, and I'll let John talk to the return standards. That being said, we'll continue to look where an asset or a small business may make sense and we can bolt it on because we've got, frankly, network synergies that others may not be able to make the same returns that we can. We'll want to go ahead and protect their most valuable franchises in some of those areas where we think we could be stronger, we'll be looking to expand those. The first thing we always want to do is acquisition and not add capacity, and we'll continue to debottleneck where it makes sense. That's our cheapest investment per dollar of capacity. So that's the highest returning but we'll continue to be optimistic but disciplined and targeted.

Yes. And well, maybe just to touch on the one big expansion project that we did put in the crush side was in Destrehan in partnership with Chevron for a very specific purpose. And that's ultimately to build switch capability to process novel seeds ultimately, we'll start with soy, but ultimately, process novel seeds for input into the renewable diesel production. So that was a very specific reason why we expanded there. And as Greg said, going forward, I think we would look opportunistically at capacity consolidation kind of thing. I don't necessarily see another big mega project like that down the road, not -- certainly not in the near future. But ultimately, when we look at returns, it's got to be a double-digit return for us. That's kind of our minimum standard. So the opportunity has to be there and then it has to make economic sense for us to do it.

And I think that's a great example of flexing the network, right? It made sense to really basically double Destrehan on the crush side and to do it with a partner, a great partner like Chevron, and we want to be the partner of choice, whether it's feed, food, fuel or the farmer. But that also gave us the opportunity on the 100% Bunge to increase our barge unloading capability not only to serve the plant, whether we're going to crush soy or winter canola or as John said, novel seeds eventually, but also to export the meal. But that capacity, if it's needed then for grains, whether it's corn or wheat or barley, whatever -- what are the other grains, we've got that additional capacity in the Gulf, and it was essentially done on a site that already had the infrastructure there. So from a cost really, really makes sense.

Okay. Got it. Leaving that part behind and moving on and to grain merchandising and milling because that's obviously something back earlier in the year, you've called out $800 million as normalized earnings levels, so kind of like a mid-cycle here. But there seems to be a little bit of an oversupply in the segment. So what would you say needs to change to kind of like get the earnings up to what is mid-cycle? Where are the missing pieces? Where is the opportunity?

The merch business, if you think that was Viterra had a much bigger footprint than we did at Bunge, especially in wheat and in the feed grains wheat, barley, corn. So again, the teams couldn't work on that until close. So as we've been bringing the teams together, bringing the assets together, there's definitely not only optimizing the flows that we have but then looking at the customer set and where we may have had someone that we were the primary meal supplier, but didn't have the ability of Bunge to serve them on the feed grains. We're now able to have completely different conversations with that customer be very strategic and grow with some of the fastest-growing global customers and really change that dialogue, whether we're helping them with budgeting, helping them manage logistics or inventories or if we're doing things on the supply chain to provide them deforestation-free soy, if they want regenerative ag on the feed grain side and then to track that all the way through the value chain.

So we're able to wrap that with some services as well. So the complete package will partially be running it better the same way, but also then growing with customers and adding some services. And then ultimately, it will be about environment and seeing the environment improve. We had heavy supply and demand balance for quite a while in the feed grains. That looks like that's starting to change, some of that on yield, some of that were the challenges on nutrients because of the Gulf war where you saw some shift in what the farmer planted. And then we've got now some of the supply trapped in Russia and Ukraine as some of those ports and ships have been targeted. We're seeing less shipping availability there than since the beginning of the war. And that's going to call on some of the other origins around the world, Australia and Canada and some of that to serve those end users. So we're seeing things start to tighten up and then, of course, El Nino and watching how that may develop is also going to be key to watch. So one is the things we can control and then being prepared for those that we can't.

Okay. Within that, I think you currently source a little over half directly, grains from farmers, but you target more like 2/3 little bit over time. What would be the advantages of achieving that target? How does that improve the financials of the business?

Yes. Number 1 is helping the farmer be successful. We need the farmers to be profitable. We need them to be expanding. We need those communities to be healthy. So the more that we can acquire directly from the farmer more that we can send the signals all the way from when they make the planting decision to when they want a market that works for them to manage their risk the better we can do on touching being the first touch that then whether we're going to end up processing that or shipping it to a certain market, it hasn't been blended down by someone else touching it.

So from -- we have more optionality, if you will, on the decisions of where that can go to manage the quality. And a lot of the focus, if you think about as we brought Viterra together, they were originating to serve a marketplace. Well, when you look at Viterra and Bunge together, you want to start with your highest margin, most important processing assets and make sure that you've expanded that drawing arc, and you're using all the assets there and to source directly and get the highest share of the origination that you should be to serve your assets. So it's very important to us, and we want to have those relationships. As we say, the land doesn't move. The origination assets don't move, the processing assets don't move. So you want to have that relationship and make sure that you're connecting those value chains where you should.

Okay. Wrapping up on the sectors, tropical oils, specialty ingredients. You've highlighted the new Amsterdam Tropical Oils refinery and the fractionation facility is a major project that's going to come online in 2027. So what portion of the earnings uplift comes from volume growth mix versus like operational efficiencies from that as we move into next year? Because if I remember right, you had like a little bit of like in-flight projects, and this is one of them. So maybe give us a little bit of a direction how to think about this for 2027.

Yes. Look, I think the project was really done for 2 reasons. One is to be able to provide additional offerings and capability that we didn't have previously. And the second one is get to become a low-cost producer in Europe. We are consolidating 2 plants into that operation effectively, one, even transitioning as we speak. And as soon as we're up and running and throughout '27, we'll be transitioning the activity from another plant.

So it's really about driving customer offerings and becoming more efficient. And so we're pretty excited about it. It's been a long time coming, but the fact that we're running oil through the pipes today is a good sign and the team is excited. Customers have been coming to visit. And I think a lot of it now from this point forward is going to be customer qualification and getting them up to speed on the capability. But we see that as a flagship asset for us going forward in Europe.

And John said it, but I think it's worth saying again, we end up running 1 facility instead of 2. We've got more capabilities, a lower cost footprint, and it's serving high-value customers with our lowest carbon footprint of any facility.

Within that segment, you also have the combination of the Morristown soy protein concentrate facility in the IFF protein business, which was acquired. So what are the milestones you're monitoring here to determine like just return rates and growth? And how is that combination coming along?

Of course, the integration, bringing the teams together, the onboarding, bringing the customer focus together. So we've got some ongoing customer business. But then as we commercialize that plant, going through all the approvals, it takes a little longer with the food customers. But as we qualify them at the new plant and bringing up our capacity utilization over time. And then these are customers that a lot of them were selling a lot of our specialty fats and oils to as well. So we, again, want to continue to cross-sell and grow on both categories. But very, very excited that another great new facility with great capabilities to sort of the high-value area, but with a very good cost position.

Yes. I think a couple of other things. One is market share. We're really focused on gaining market share. And I think given the offerings that we're going to have and some of the unique products we're going to be able to produce, we feel like we're going to be in a good position for that. And if you look forward, I mean, you're seeing protein in Pop-Tarts and just about everything now donuts. And I mean they're putting protein and everything. And the profile of some of the products we're offering fit really well into that with neutral taste and texture, which is really critical for some of those food opportunities. And we're pretty excited about the timing of this plant coming online. When you think about GLP-1s and the focus on protein intake, it's going to be -- it's going to create some real opportunity.

Are you seeing actually some sort of like consumer weakness in some of these more like specialty segments, specialty oils, et cetera in certain areas, but then others maybe not so much just like the protein piece you've just highlighted. And how do you react to that? Is there anything you can do about or if it's just at the end consumer is weak and there's just not the demand for the raw materials you have to live with it.

Yes. Our goal is always to use our creative solution centers and work with our customers. And it can -- what their needs are continues to evaluate based on the consumer. We're seeing kind of 2 things. One, those serving more of the cost-conscious consumer. They're looking where can they reformulate based on things that are happening in the market and taking a cost focus. And then some of those that are serving that consumer that's not as price sensitive and some of the stronger brands, they're continuing to innovate because they want to bring forward new SKUs, new product line extensions.

And so we're working with them on new, which seems really odd that you've got cost saving projects going as well as new product launch work on innovation at the same time. But that is kind of the market that we're living in today.

Okay. Got it. Coming back on one of the things around Viterra and obviously, you said it's just a year, synergies are just coming along and is working together, the budgeting like making guidance, et cetera, of that business. Obviously, it's a massive operation. It's large, right? I mean it's 2 big companies that went together. You've laid out earlier in the year, a couple of like opportunities as to what EPS accretion would look like, which was Viterra related. So 6 months into it, where do we stand right now more or less on the Viterra piece? And where do you -- what do you think about the time line of the Viterra's piece, in particular, as to the baseline moving on EPS accretion?

Yes. Well, I can start, Greg, and then -- so there were really 3 components we laid out related to Viterra. One was cost synergies which -- and I'll talk about that in a minute and then commercial and network synergies. And then there was a third piece of kind of capital structure related around debt, debt refinancing, share buyback. We completed the capital -- kind of the capital structure portion, it's been largely completed. We finished our share buybacks earlier this year related to Viterra, and then we've done the refinancing of most of their debt and at the lowest credit spreads we ever borrowed in the history of Bunge as a result of getting a credit upgrade at the close. So that part has been executed.

On the cost side, the SG&A synergies we had originally estimated about $250 million over 4 years, we recently, well back at Investor Day increased that to $350 million, and we're trying to accelerate that by a year. And I would say we're well on our way there. We expect about $190 million in '26. We had communicated that earlier in the year. And we feel like a lot of momentum into capturing those 2 pieces. So the things we can control, I think we're doing a really nice job and Greg can certainly comment on the commercial side.

Do you want to talk about where we're on a run rate versus realized?

Yes. Well, yes, by the end of the year, we'll be over $200 million run rate on cost synergies. So we're going to realize in the P&L $190 million this year. And so we'll be very close to our original $250 million target run rate by the end of this year, but we're not stopping. We think we're going to capture another $100-plus million. And then we won't stop, right? I mean, we're going to keep looking for opportunity.

And then if you remember, we talked about the commercial synergies, why we won't report on those. Those will have to be seen -- you'll have to see that at the bottom line in the gross margin. Now the teams couldn't work on that until we close. But they've been doing a fantastic job of really thinking through how we're going to grow with the right customers, how we're going to optimize the network on where we're going to put capital in our assets where we do need debottlenecking, which assets we may not run. We may sell a random asset here and there. And those you'll see proven out over time.

But we want to be the partner of choice, not just for the customers but with our providers. If you think about transportation providers, we've taken that focus, whether it's truck, rail, barge, container, ocean-going vessel to make sure that we're using the importance that we have to those providers that we're operating on the best contract that each one of us had and that when we think about how we're negotiating going forward are lowering that cost between the end consumer and the farmer and that benefits both of them.

Okay. Got it. Picking up on one thing. You said you finished the $2 billion buyback. Obviously, that was part of the transaction in first place. But you've also announced share buyback authorization to basically further return cash to shareholders aside from dividend also through buybacks. And I think you've a pretty sporty target here to really step that up. How should we think about the time line for this? And in terms of kicking in, when are you going to start doing those more accelerated buybacks?

Yes. So the way the framework was set up ultimately is what we said is we're going to start with adjusted funds from operations or cash flow. We're going to first take care of maintaining our assets. So we're going to spend call it, $700 million to $800 million a year on capital for maintenance of our existing footprint. Of that remaining amount, which we describe as discretionary cash flow, our target is to allocate 50% of that to shareholder returns that's going to come in the form of dividends and share buyback, which in the long run are going to be roughly about the same number. Over time, dividends will continue to grow probably at a modest rate. But what we're looking at is by 2030 to roughly be $700 million of dividends, $700 million of share buybacks.

Between now and then, it will kind of steadily ramp toward that number. In '26, we've largely with the finishing our $250 million. We don't anticipate any more allocation to share buyback this year. It doesn't mean it won't happen. But really, our framework was built to start in 2027. May not happen on exactly a straight line, but over time, that's what our plan is. And so if there's an opportunity here or there, we'll see one way or the other. If there's no opportunities for us to deploy capital in a smart way elsewhere, we could accelerate buybacks even in excess of that.

And then ultimately, when we get to 2030, the way we look at the numbers, once we get to that $13 baseline run rate, we're going to have excess cash that we think can drive us to that $15 number that we laid out, which will include additional share buyback over and above the normal framework, just given we believe we'll be generating a significant amount of cash flow by that point.

And one piece of that, I guess, is also CapEx coming down from roughly $2.6-ish billion this year. I think you guide $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. You expect that to come down closer to $1 billion, $1.1 billion. But when should we expect that to be the case? Like what's like the phasing of that? And then as CapEx comes down and then obviously frees up cash for buybacks, what's like aside from buybacks, maybe the appetite for M&A?

Yes. So the trajectory we see -- so we said this year, $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion this year. Next year, we will largely have ramped down all of our mega projects with the exception of our plant in Amsterdam. We'll be finishing up around Q1. So some of that likely to spill into Q2 in terms of CapEx. Second half of '27, we should be much closer to our $1.1 billion run rate, which is about, again, $700 million to $800 million of maintenance and, call it, $300 million to $400 million of growth and productivity CapEx to be defined. We don't necessarily have specific projects today, but we think that generally, that will be about the run rate between improving our existing assets and maybe some opportunistic things. From an M&A standpoint, we'll see if those things come. And if something makes sense, meets our -- strategically makes sense, meets our hurdle rates, fills a gap in our footprint or something strategically we want to do, we'll allocate capital that way. But otherwise, it will be primarily share buyback and returns as we focus on really driving EPS ultimately.

Okay. Greg, in closing, any messages? We haven't touched on anything you would like to get definitely out there.

Yes. Well, I would just say, I couldn't be more proud of the team, the way that we've brought these businesses together the last year, nobody talks about whether they were Bunge and Viterra before, everybody is Bunge the way that we are working with our farmer customers as well as our consuming customers and all of the benefits that we thought that we would get, we're not all the way to bright, but we continue to make great progress. And in this world, whether you want to talk about the fact that we believe it's going to stay complicated, right?

Globalization, which we all enjoyed for decades made the world an easier place to operate in our business. Every origin open to every destination. That feels like that's done, and that's done for a period of time. And so as we continue to increase yields without -- to increase the production to meet the growth in population and the increase in the income, the per capita consumption increases for fats and oils and animal proteins and protein meals. We've got to meet that with the same hectares in the same acres, and that means more production. And we've got a weather cycle that is definitely more violent. So when there is a production problem, it's a bigger issue to serve demand. And as I said, every origin is not open every destination.

And so our capabilities not only help us manage our risk but help our customers manage their risk, and we've just -- we've never been in a better position. So it's funny to have a 208-year-old company that feels like a new company and that is really built for the complexity, whether it is the geopolitical or the weather or policy uncertainty. But as biofuels continues to grow, and it becomes complex to serve the customers. We've never been in a better position, and I know we can count on this team to deliver.

Perfect. Well, that's a wrap on time. Thank you very much. There will be no breakout.

Good day, and welcome to Bunge Global Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Great, thank you. And thank you all for joining us this morning for our second quarter 2026 earnings call.

Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well.

I'd like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors.

On the call this morning are Greg Heckman, Bunge's Chief Executive Officer; and John Neppl, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking the team for their focus and disciplined execution in what continues to be a highly dynamic operating environment. Across the organization, our people are working together to navigate uncertainty and capture opportunities for our customers and for Bunge, and we delivered another strong quarter.

We've talked about the diversification that our larger global platform provides us across crops and geographies. We saw the benefit of that diversification this quarter, particularly in soy and softseed processing. John will go into some more detail on our results in a moment.

The broader operating environment continues to evolve, queue political tensions, shifting trade flows and changing weather patterns across key growing regions, are reshaping farmer behavior, crop availability and increasing volatility. As a result, customers at both ends of the value chain are relying on us more than ever to help them navigate risk. This is not new territory for us. We have a long track record of managing market volatility and continuing to deliver for our stakeholders, all while growing our earnings. We can say with confidence that Bunge's business is built for complexity and change. Our integrated global platform, disciplined risk management and operational excellence are designed to keep supply moving to meet demand and serve our customers regardless of how conditions shift. This is what allows us to perform through the cycle.

Turning to our outlook. Based on what we can see today, we now expect full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $9.25 to $9.75, which is up from our previous range of $9 to $9.50 we provided on our first quarter call. While forward visibility remains limited given the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, the drivers of long-term demand remains strong. And with our global footprint and diversified value chains, we're confident in our ability to execute in any environment.

And with that, I'll turn it over to John for a deeper look at our financials and outlook.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone.

Let's turn to the earnings highlights on Slide 5. Our reported second quarter earnings per share was $3.47 compared to $2.61 in the second quarter of 2025. Our reported results included a favorable mark-to-market timing difference of $1.67 per share and an unfavorable impact of $0.20 per share related to Viterra transaction and integration costs. Adjusted EPS was $2 in the second quarter versus $1.31 in the prior year. Adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, was $796 million in the quarter versus $373 million last year.

In the Soybean Processing and Refining segment, higher results were primarily driven by the North and South American value chains. In North America, stronger processing performance in the U.S. was partially offset by lower refining results. In South America, high results reflect improvements in Argentina processing refining and Brazil processing. Within the destination value chain, stronger processing results in Asia more than offset lower processing results in Europe and a lower distribution performance. Results from global soybean oil merchandising activities were lower than last year. Processing volumes increased in both South and North America as well as in Europe with the largest increase driven by the company's greater production capacity in Argentina. Higher merchandise volumes reflected the combined company's expanded soybean origination footprint.

In Softseed Processing and Refining segment, the results increased across all regions, reflecting a more favorable market environment and strong execution. In North America and Argentina, stronger processing results were the primary drivers of improved performance while refining results were modestly higher in both regions. In Europe, stronger processing results more than offset lower refining and biodiesel performance. Results from global softseed oils merchandising activities were slightly higher than last year. Higher soft seed process volumes primarily reflected the combined company's increased production capacity in Argentina, Canada and Europe. And higher merchandise volumes were driven by the company's expanded global softseed origination footprint.

For the Tropical Oils and Specialty Ingredients segment, higher results in Europe and Asia were partially offset by lower results in North America. Results from global tropical oils merchandising activities were slightly higher than last year. In the Grain Merchandising and Milling segment, higher results in ocean freight, commercial services global cotton and wheat milling were partially offset by lower results in global grain merchandising and sugar. Higher volumes primarily reflected the company's expanded grain handling footprint and capabilities. Prior year results included corn milling, which was divested in 2025. The increase in corporate expenses was primarily driven by the addition of Viterra. The year-over-year comparison was also impacted by timing of performance-based compensation. Higher other results were largely related to our captive insurance program and [ Monkey Ventures ].

Net interest expense of $154 million was up in the quarter compared to last year, reflecting our expanded footprint in merchandising activities with the addition of Viterra, partially offset by lower average net interest rates.

Let's turn to Slide 6, which shows our adjusted EPS and EBIT trends over the past 4 years in the trailing 12 months. After a challenging 2025, the trend is beginning to reverse, reflecting improved market conditions and the early benefits of synergy capture from our combination of Viterra. Slide 7 details our capital allocation. Year-to-date, we generated approximately $1.3 billion of adjusted funds from operations. After allocating $238 million to sustaining CapEx, which includes maintenance and environmental health and safety, we had approximately $1.1 billion of discretionary cash flow available. We paid $275 million in dividends to shareholders, invested $541 million in growth in productivity related CapEx, invested $105 million in the first quarter to acquire IFF's soybean processing concentrate business and repurchased approximately $250 million in Bunge shares completing the $2 billion commitment related to the Viterra transaction. This resulted in a net use of $117 million.

Moving to Slide 8. At quarter end, net debt exceeded readily marketable inventory or RMI by $1 billion. Our adjusted leverage ratio, which reflects our adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.9x at the end of the second quarter. Slide 9 highlights our liquidity position, which remains strong. At the end of the second quarter, we had committed credit facilities of approximately $9.7 billion, of which approximately $8.8 billion was unused and available. We also had approximately $2.4 billion of our $3 billion commercial paper program available, providing ample liquidity to manage our ongoing needs.

Please turn to Slide 10. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted ROIC was 8.4% and ROIC was 6.8%, both exceeding their respective cost of capital. Adjusted for construction and progress in our large multiyear projects, in excess cash on our balance sheet, our adjusted ROIC would increase to 9.3% and ROIC to 7.2%.

Moving to Slide 11. For the trailing 12 months, we produced discretionary cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion and a cash return on equity of 10.8% compared to our cost of equity of 7.2%. Please turn to Slide 12 and our 2026 outlook. Taking into account Q2 results, the current margin and macro environment and forward curves, we now expect full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $9.25 to $9.75, which is up from our previous range of $9 to $9.50. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, the environment remains complex with significant uncertainty in certain regions, particularly in the fourth quarter.

For the full year compared to our previous outlook, Soybean Processing and Refining segment results are forecasted to be higher. Softseed Processing and Refining segment results are forecasted to be slightly higher. Tropical Oils and Specialty Ingredients results are forecasted to be unchanged. Grain Merchandising and Milling segment results were forecasted to be lower and corporate and other results are expected to be unchanged. Additionally, we continue to expect for 2026 an adjusted annual effective tax rate in the range of 22% to 26%. And interest expense in the range of $620 million to $660 million, capital expenditures in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion and depreciation and amortization of approximately $975 million all unchanged from our previous outlook.

With that, I'll turn things back over to Greg for some closing comments.

Thanks, John. Before turning to Q&A, I want to offer a few closing thoughts. The strategy and priorities we outlined earlier this year at Investor Day, hold true today. And our second quarter results are another proof point that we're delivering on our commitments.

I spoke earlier about the benefits of our diversification. That breadth provides greater balance and resilience across a range of market environments and gives us the capabilities to perform through the cycle. At the same time, we're advancing our key initiatives. Viterra cost synergies continue to run ahead of plan, and we're making tangible progress on the network and commercial opportunities we identified. As John mentioned, we completed our $2 billion share repurchase program related to the Viterra transaction. Our in-flight capital projects remain on track. At our Destrehan, Louisiana facility, we're in the final stages of bringing 2 meaningful investments online, a new barge unloader and a new multi-seed processing plant, both of which we expect to be operational in the coming months.

We're also advancing strategic partnerships to expand our relationships in renewable fuels. In Brazil, we recently signed a supply agreement with a [ sell-in Mabel's ] renewable energy company to provide certified soybean oil feedstock for production of SAF in renewable diesel. We also entered into a partnership with Petrobras and Vibra to supply certified Low-LUC CORSIA Brazil feedstock for the production and commercialization of SAF. These agreements strengthen our position as a trusted supplier of sustainable feedstocks and further deepen our participation in the growing renewable fuels value chain.

Zooming out, the long-term demand drivers for our business remain strong. Population growth and rising incomes are driving sustained demand for grain and oilseed products. Feedstock demand across our global processing network who network is also benefiting from the constructive RVO in the U.S., along with growing biodiesel blend rates in other countries. Soy and softseed oils are expected to contribute approximately 1/2 of global vegetable oil production growth over the next decade. And that's a meaningful shift as palm supply growth slows. These are durable multiyear tailwinds that reinforce our confidence in the earnings power of this business and our trajectory. The in-flight projects we're bringing online, the integration work underway, the network and commercial synergies, we continue to identify are all additive to a business that already has strong structural demand pulling through it.

Our fundamentals are strong. Our strategy continues to deliver and we have the most talented people in the industry. As we look ahead, we remain focused on what matters, serving our customers and delivering value for our stakeholders across food, feed and fuel. And with that, we'll turn to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And today's first question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

Greg, you mentioned in the press release and in the prepared remarks, that the expanded global platform is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Can you elaborate on how the Viterra assets are benefiting Bunge in this environment versus if you didn't have those assets? Any examples you can share would be helpful.

Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Yes, I'd say it starts with the footprint. I mean, the fact that we have the balance in all of the key origins and all of the key destinations and to touch more farmers directly than anyone else for origination is just key.

And of course, it's the talented team that we've got that we brought together that is operating that footprint and dealing directly with our customers. If you think about the information network we have now assembled to be able to make decisions as well as to execute the purchase and the sales whether we're helping our farmers get to market, we're helping our end consumers get to market or solving the physical supply challenges in the value chain, we just got more internal liquidity and more optionality to solve those problems than we had before. And that's whether that's originating for ourselves into our processing or whether it's originating for our distribution business and distributing to others, whether that's domestically or export.

And then if you think about soy, adding Argentina to that really gave us the global balance that we were missing before in our soy creating operations. And then if you take a quick look at soft, you think about, again, we've added the balance of having Argentine sun crushing to balance Europe. And with some of the challenges you've seen in Europe in the last year, we've really seen the benefit of that as well as the increased origination and merchandising that we have around the softseeds now. And then, of course, the ocean fleet -- the ocean freight fleet, we basically doubled on our flows. And so in times of disruption as we've seen the ability to react and continue to get the origination to the right demand. And the other example, when you look forward, again, when you think about the footprint, if you look at China and Australia continue to improve their relationship.

So you may start to see more Australian canola move into China. And then we now have the capability then to make sure that the Canadian canola that was going there that then that works through our processing. So again, we're balancing and able to continue to serve our customers and benefit different parts of our platform.

And maybe, Andrew, just to add there quickly. The other benefit, obviously, is with our stronger credit profile as a combined company, we're borrowing money now at the tightest credit spreads we have in the history of Bunge which gives us a little bit of an edge in terms of -- in the marketplace, given the market generally trades on average interest costs. So to the extent we can borrow money cheaper and access that liquidity gives us a chance to stay in there and do more business than maybe some of our competitors.

Right. Okay. That's super helpful. And just a second question. I think at least in our conversations with investors, people are kind of struggling with the U.S. crush curve we see today, what's justified by fundamentals versus elevated energy markets. Do you think underlying fundamentals support the current margin structure, excluding the higher energy prices? Or how are you thinking about where the curve is today versus fundamentals and maybe where we would be in a more steady-state environment?

Yes, we -- yes, would be the answer. We definitely do. And then we've got clarity around the RVO. We're now seeing that the crush that's been added is here to meet that demand, and we continue to see strong meal demand globally and strong corn demand, which tells us that underlying fee demand is there for the economics on the animal protein. So yes, we feel they're justified. And definitely, U.S. and North America is leading the global crush.

Yes. I would just add, Andrew, I think the elevated U.S. crush margins and certainly the -- the energy phenomenon increased energy cost is kind of a global thing. And with the higher crush rates in North America, crush margins in North America, exacerbated a bit by the volatility in energy. But ultimately, when you look at the demand, as Greg pointed out, we have very strong underlying fundamentals.

And the next question comes from Steven Haynes with Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to ask on just on the crush outlook also maybe [indiscernible] when you're putting the guide together just generally and you're using the curve, is there a -- are you using the crepes of yesterday? Or like what date, I guess, time period are you kind of marking for the current period? And then secondly, I think LatAm margins have kind of come down significantly over the last month or so. So what have you kind of assumed on that side of it as well?

Yes, I can start, Greg. I mean we use this current of information as we get. I mean, obviously, this morning, we couldn't do it. But it's fairly current. So the outlook that we have today would reflect largely what the curves are today. We're still looking at it a few weeks ahead of time. I mean we're constantly looking at our forecast, but we take a hard look obviously heading in the call here and try to get as current of information as we can. So we feel like it largely reflects still today how we feel versus when we put the forecast in internally.

And I'd just add, right, where you can see board crush in some of the markets, we still have to have some judgment in the physical crush in the cash. And so it does take some judgment, but we are as current as we can be and it feels like it's in the right place right now.

Got it. Okay. And then maybe as a separate follow-up on Glencore, [ lockup ] period [indiscernible], how are you all thinking about how that situation may evolve in the coming weeks, months or however long it may take to play out in one way or another?

Yes. Look, Glencore has been a great partner, and you might remember that the one thing that they liked about getting equity in this deal is with their business, they understand the commercial synergies of the combination, and they know that it takes a while to mine all those and get those and they wanted to be part of that value creation. And John and I talk to them often on a number of issues. And they're -- they quote them, they're in no hurry and they won't surprise us. And so they're great partners.

And the next question is from Manav Gupta with UBS.

I am going to take you back to Slide 30 of your Analyst Day. I understand it might not be open. But with my questions related to that, you obviously gave us a very good update on Destrehan, can you also give us an update on the remaining 3 projects which you have indicated could add about $1.30 to 2030 EPS? And my second quick follow-up question, which is again on this slide is at the time of the Analyst Day, you had identified cost synergies and network and commercial synergies, but there was a bar on top, which has upside potential of Viterra synergies. If you could talk about that also.

Yes, I'll start with the project. So of course, in Destrehan, we have 2 projects underway. One is the crush plant that sits in the JV with Chevron. And we expect right here at the end of Q3 for that to be up online, give or take a few weeks. Then the other one is our barge unloader and load out capability in the terminal that we've expanded or doubled the size of that one should be up and running in August, sometime in August, hopefully, that's the plan.

The other big -- a couple of other big U.S. projects. One is our Morristown SPC plant, which is now running, certainly not up to full scale yet. It takes time for that to happen. But we are now producing product in Morristown. So we're happy with that and excited about to see how that thing goes. But again, it takes a little bit of time from a commissioning standpoint, customer qualification, everything else, but we like the momentum there. And then down in Avondale, which is in the Gulf as well, we expanded our refining -- refined tropical oils platform down there, and that's going to be up and running in the next month or so.

But other big project is Weston, the big specialty and refined plant in Netherlands. That one is still slated for end of Q1 of 2027. So things are really coming online right now. I think over the next few quarters, we'll start to see the benefits of that certainly. And then Weston, of course, will be into 2027 before we start seeing that running at a meaningful rate, but we're pretty excited about it. From a cost synergy standpoint, I think the -- I'll focus on the cost side and Greg can comment on the commercial side. But on the cost synergies, we're happy with progress there. As you may recall, we increased our cost target from $250 million to $350 million and we're continuing to push hard on areas of opportunity, and we're going to try to get it done sooner if possible. But we feel good about the timing and progress there as we move forward, and we'll certainly keep you updated.

And when you think about the upside synergies, some of what we were referring to there, some of it is just about the time for the teams to get some repetition of running the system together through a season as we bring the footprint optimization together on how we're running the combined network and that we're running the right assets at the right times. And then how we're growing with customers strategically and how we're growing our direct origination with our farmer customers and how we're growing our direct distribution with our consuming customers.

And I will just tell you, being able to bring corn to some of the customers that we had, the majority of their meal business, but we didn't have the same corn footprint before on origination, we're able to just have different conversations because we've got a complete portfolio grains oilseeds and oils and wheat, barley, derm, the softseeds to serve these different customers' needs. We're just having different conversations with the customers, much more strategic conversations and really able to grow those relationships. And I think long term, you see the benefit of that.

And the next question comes from Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital.

I want to start first on the policy side regarding expected CSA updates within 45Z policy, how are you viewing the impact you can have on your U.S. business? Meaning with the right incentives in place, could you see a meaningful shift in killing cover crop in fertilizer practices.

Yes, I'll take that, and Greg can jump in. Look, I think for us, we've been working with a lot of producers in this area hoping that climate smart ag practices become part of 45Z on a permanent basis. So we've been, as you know, we focused on winter can always a cover crop, we've been testing a number of other novel seeds. We've been working very closely with farmers, primarily on the seed side and with overall farming practices is we believe, long term, that's going to make sense economically for the farmer and also incent the right sort of behavior in terms of ag practices.

So we're working on it under the assumption that it becomes a part of 45Z. If it doesn't, I think we're still -- it still makes sense a lot of what we're doing, especially providing farmers alternatives for another cash crop and we're pretty excited about the feedback we've gotten. We continue to increase acres and have gotten very positive feedback so far on how things are progressing.

I would just add and remember, we believe in that strong enough that the crush plant we're adding [indiscernible] has the ability to do sauce. It's a switch plant, which would also allow to do other cover crops. As well, we announced the 2 projects in Brazil. So it's not just a U.S. issue as well as the conversations we're having with energy companies in Europe and that are definitely interested in some of these cover crops and things and what they can mean especially around SAF for the long term.

Great. And then maybe shifting to the geopolitical environment. Are you guys seeing any early time impacts due to the lack of fertilizer access in South America?

A little, but I think the coming season is going to be the key one to watch here on the Brazilian farmer. They've had good application rates in the past. But it could maybe have some impact us next year on safrinha, we want to watch that close.

Australia, you saw them switching some from wheat to canola already. But the concern overall now isn't nitrogen, which has kind of corrected itself on price. It's a little bit more around phosphates. So that's the one we'll be watching closely. In Argentina, if it persists, that long term, they may not make the investment, and so could you'd want to watch yields closely there.

The next question comes from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

I wanted to maybe start with an update just kind of on your visibility for the second half and how it influenced your guidance. As discussed earlier, you typically guide based on curves. I think previously, you had discussed a rough second half split of kind of 45% in 3Q, 55% in 4Q. So is this still a reasonable outlook? And then maybe you could frame kind of how much visibility you have as we look out here in terms of different regions of the world on the crush curve?

Yes, I can maybe start with the mix, and then I'll turn it over to Greg for an outlook on the crush curves globally. But right now, we've shifted a little bit. I think we look at low 40s and high 50s in terms of breakdown between Q3 and Q4. So not a significant shift but a small shift. So again, low 40s, high 50s is kind of how we're looking at Q3, Q4 breakout.

And then if you look kind of by the soy and soft. If you look across soy, since the Q1 forecast, the second half margins are definitely up in the U.S. That's the big driver. Argentina is up slightly, but we're dealing a little bit higher energy costs there. Europe and Asia really unchanged, and then Brazil is a little lower and some of that's been on strong bean exports. The [ B16 ] has been delayed and then the farmer was a big seller early in the selling slowed down. If you look at demand still very good overall, but very spot. And that's the uncertainty with both the conflicts going on.

So the U.S. refined oil demand continues to be improved. And in the second, we -- the RVO clarity has really helped that. But again, with the conflict, people remaining very spot. So the balance of '26, it's above baseline margins, but again, driven primarily by the U.S. And then in softseed, our second half margin assumptions are roughly the same, and you've seen the nearby spots rallied around the geopolitical risk, but some of that capacity we already had committed. That happened awfully late. The average curves for '26 will end up well above the baseline and that's driven by Canada, which is supported by RVO and then we've had good seed supply. And then Argentina, where there's been tight sunseed supply in Europe and the Black Sea, Argentina have good seed supply and that's supported.

And then the other watch in softseed, I mentioned earlier, we'll watch the canola exports and we could see that shift things moving from Australia and changing what the crush economics look like in Canada? So those are the big drivers here in the second half.

Understood. I also wanted to ask on the merchandising side and just some of the weakness that you're seeing? And if there are any, I guess, particular regions that might be causing some constraints because mean if we look at export volumes out of the U.S., they do seem pretty robust, especially on the corn side.

Yes. The merchandising environment definitely remain challenging, and that's been -- there's still been ample grain supplies you've got a pretty balanced S&D. We do expect some of the improvement in Q4. Of course, we've got the Australia and the Northern Hemisphere harvest come off. And then right now, the key that we're watching is you've got the Black Sea, the escalation in the conflict there has added a lot of uncertainty on what's going on with global wheat S&Ds.

So if you end up limiting there's probably 25% of global exports come out of the Black Sea area. We've probably seen the worst conflict there since the beginning of the war that could really tighten weed up, especially in the short term where it have to be service for some other origins that could change things. And then the other we're watching, of course, is China. Would they possibly import corn as part of the $17 billion board of trade commitments. It's not clear what commodities are going to be there. So those will be kind of the key flags, I think, on the merch business.

Yes. And Tom, I'd just add there that we do expect to see sequential improvement in Q3 and then again, a pretty good increase in terms of performance expectations in Q4, just given that's a big quarter for us in that business. And Greg pointed out, I mean there's a lot of global volatility. So that's a segment that could benefit from some of that depending on what happens. But we do expect things to get better and global demand remains good. So we just got -- we got to be prepared as we always are to jump on it when it's there.

And the next question comes from Pooran Sharma with Stephens Inc.

Just wanted to understand some of the performance in soft seed and see how sustainable that is. I mean you mentioned improved performance across every region. It exceeded our expectations. So I just wanted to get a sense of how much is reflected in favorable margins versus improved execution utilization? And how much of that is sustainable as you move into 2027?

Yes. That's an area where Viterra brought us a lot in the origination as well in the processing gave us a lot more balance. So our softseed footprint now is much more balanced globally like our soy was prior, except for the Argentina hole, which we were able to fill with Viterra.

So I think the way those value chains are working together all the way through the origination through the processing has been great. And then when we've seen challenges, like the tight sunseed crop in the Black Sea, we're able to answer for customers out of Argentina and balance that. So going forward, right now, the challenges as the Black Sea tightens up again, we'll have to serve that with soy or sun oil out of Argentina to customers in as well as just continuing to watch how things develop with the customers. You've got Palm tightening up somewhat, that's been supportive of the soft oils. And then the RVO, of course, has been supported to the soft oil. So it's -- the oil dimension has been a big driver of soft seeds and that will be durable.

Okay. And I guess I just wanted to focus on Argentina here for the follow-up. Obviously, really good results. You mentioned your increase in capacity improved year-over-year performance. Wanted to kind of get a better sense of how we should expect performance in this region as we look ahead. I think you had a delayed harvest and some farmers selling into -- carrying into early 2Q. As the crop becomes more available, how should we think about utilization and margins in Argentina through the back half of this year? And how does that impact other regions across your footprint?

Yes, you're right. I mean the farmer selling has been good, and part of that is just a more stable economy overall. I'd say the farmer behavior in Argentina start to look a lot more like the rest of the world, the handle large harvest and performed kind of as expected. We don't expect the '27 export tariff reduction to influence the '26 selling beyond what we're going to see from a normal seasonal slowdown.

So we expect '27 to continue to kind of normalize on how Argentina operates. And then how we run Argentina, of course, will balance with the rest of our system. And we'll kind of let the market go with the good demand that we're seeing. Continue, meal continues to really surprise kind of quarter after quarter the meal demand. But having Renova having the largest and lowest cost operating plant globally, we'll run in Argentina hard and balance with the rest of our global system.

And the next question comes from Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research.

I wanted to start on the soy processing or soy business. I was just trying to reconcile the performance with what we saw in industry margins. I was calculating EBIT per ton similar to what we saw in Q3 last year. But my estimate of industry margins were substantially higher than what they would have been in Q3. So I just wondering if you could flesh that out to help us understand I didn't know if you had heavy hedges on in crush and refining, but just any additional color you could provide there would be very welcome.

Yes. Heather, yes, look, our best margins in soy processing over, let's say, the last 6 quarters has been this quarter in Q2. So not 100% sure. Maybe we can circle back with you on what you're looking at, but it actually globally overall soy processing were very strong in Q2 and the best we've seen in a while.

Okay. I mean I was consolidating your soy business and just taking a EBIT per ton. But yes, we can follow up on that offline.

Part of it could be a volume thing. We -- part of the volume that we include in our -- that segment is driven by merchandising of soybeans that we originate in Brazil that can fluctuate dramatically quarter-to-quarter. And in fact, in Q2 here, we saw a significant increase in volume, not only sequentially from Q1 but versus a year ago on the merchandising side, we originated significant amount of soybeans out of Brazil this quarter. That will ultimately either be crushed or sold to third parties. And that volume is included in our overall volume numbers. So that's possible that could be impacting your analysis.

Okay. All right. And I'll follow up on that. Second question was just on -- just I know there's been a lot of headlines around super El Nino. It seems like the probability of that is continues to grow. And just Wondering, as you look at your footprint, both on the Oilseed side, also merchandising, just -- if we look at 15, 16 as an event, I think some are saying it might look more like 98%, 99% or 97%, 98%, I can't remember. Just could you walk us through if this looks like those events -- how do you size up the impact for Bunge?

Yes. I'll start, John, if you want -- but I would say, overall, with the balanced footprint we've got now kind of having to solve problems for the marketplace, a disruption that a supply shock or sustained demand growth, that's where really the optionality that exists in our physical flows and in our asset base you would really see the benefits of that versus what we see in this -- the conflicts that are happening in the Black Sea and the Middle East. Those are much more episodic volatility and it comes with a lot of speculative volatility.

That actually has been hard on -- it's been negative to volumes, it's been negative to margins. And is challenging for our customers, especially the end users who become much more short bought. So that creates a challenging. So this would be actually a situation where we're able to use our system to solve problems. And if it did a bit of a walk on how you think about Australia would be near term, the most exposed. But we've already seen some shifting of farmers from wheat to canola and barley. And again, we handle all of those. So we'll be there for our farmer customers.

Brazil would be watching the planting timing if you end up getting delayed planning on -- could impact safrinha. And then where fertilizer prices at that point? And does that affect the investment that the farmers making and does that affect yields, right? If you think about medium term, '27, that starts creating the risk in Malaysia and Indonesia palm production, which then we'll have to fill that gap with soft oils. That would be good for us. We're seeing maybe India is already feeling some of the impact of that where we've seen increased veg oil imports.

And then really, in all scenarios, it looked like Argentina continues to be a winner, and we've got a great footprint there, not only in the processing, but the origination and marketing business there. So we should benefit from good crops.

And the next question comes from Matthew Blair with TPH.

Seems like there's some concern in the market on an RVO waiver in the U.S. just in light of high retail gas in prices. I think that seems unlikely to us, but what's your thinking here? And how much of that is the risk?

Yes. I would say we don't have any special insights that there's going to be anything that dramatic. Certainly, the thing we're watching right now are SRE is expected to come out some definition and some rulings around SREs in potentially the coming days, weeks is probably the first watch out for us. And then of course, the [indiscernible] biofuel policy for '28-'29 is just beginning to be in the works, and we're expecting maybe a first look at that sometime after the elections in the fall with plans to finalize that midyear next year. But in terms of any sort of waivers at this point, nothing that we're aware of.

Sounds good. And then congrats on finishing your share buyback program. I know the original plan this year was the $250 million of share repurchases but you've also raised your earnings up twice now. So is there -- should we expect any additional share repurchases in the back half of the year just in light of the 2 guidance raises?

Yes. I mean, we'll take a look at that. I mean our first priority is going to be in this market with the dynamics that we're seeing. We do expect a good chance we're going to deploy more money into working capital as we go through the back half of the year just given prices in the global dynamics. And we want to make sure our credit rating and our leverage ratio are where we want them and not concerned about the credit rating itself, but make sure our leverage ratio is in target. So that will be an important aspect.

And then as we look forward, we'll see. We remain committed to our long-term new framework that we talked about where we're going to allocate 50% of our discretionary cash flow to share shareholders, whether that's through dividends or repurchases and we plan to stick with that framework. And then timing will just be hard to predict right now, but it's possible.

The next question comes from Ben Theurer of Barclays.

Greg, John, a lot are being covered here. So just a quick one maybe, and we haven't talked much about your tropical oils and your grain merchandising business yet. Can you kind of dig maybe a little bit deeper on what's driving the current conditions to where they are? What are like kind of like the pain points? I mean that seems to be not yet just on full theme. I just wanted to understand what are some of the underlying issues maybe in those 2 segments? And then I have a quick follow-up on cash flow, what you just mentioned.

Yes. On the refined oil side, the majority of that still goes to the food customers, they've definitely seen this to be a challenging environment. So there are more short but we've seen a little bit of switching to some lower-value products from part of that customer group responding to consumers. But it's been interesting because we've seen some of them also moving back to innovation and trying to bring some of those customers back and our ability to provide those solutions has been appreciated, and we think that, that will pay off long term.

The other thing we've seen in some of our Cocoa Butter equivalent business looks like those prices for cocoa moving higher again. So yes, look, that later in the year, that could be an opportunity for the Tropicals business as well. And then we're just at the front edge of bringing up our protein plant during in Morristown. So I think I hit the question there.

Yes. Maybe, Ben, I would just add that as I mentioned earlier, we've got our Avondale facility up and coming. And that's that -- when we bought that facility from Fuji I guess been a couple of years ago already. We were at 100% capacity immediately, and we're basically -- we expect to be running at 100% as soon as that addition comes online. So that's going to provide us some additional momentum. And then, of course, longer term, the Weston, we're starting to run some oil through that the pipes there.

So we're getting excited there and obviously working with customers in Europe socializing the site with them, having them do visits and getting ready to ship demand from others. We continue to operate in Rotterdam in the facility we sold a few years ago. But as we shift that business over, we're going to have a lot more capability in Europe than we do today. So we like the momentum in the business. I think team is excited about where we're headed and just it's going to take a little time to put all the pieces together.

Okay. Perfect. And then just looking at CapEx, you're kind of like running towards the midpoint, but just wanted to understand what could drive you to the higher end of the range of the $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. So what comes up with these projects coming to an end just to get a sense on where we're heading on CapEx.

Yes. It's really probably more around tying of when we're going to get projects completed and contracting invoiced. I'd say today, we're probably closer to the high end of that range. would be my guess. And we'll see as we get through the balance of the year, it's always timing on when work gets completed and we get billed and get paid. But right now that I would venture to guess, we're a little closer to the higher end of the range at the midpoint.

Go ahead. All right. So that's all the questions we've got. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for your interest in Bunge. I'd like to thank our team again for doing a fantastic job to manage through the complexity that we have using our global footprint and our capabilities. and the optionality that exists there to serve our customers and continue to meet what continues to be very strong demand. So thank you all for joining. Have a great week.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Okay. We're excited to kick off the afternoon with a discussion with Bunge. Since assuming their current roles in 2019, CEO, Greg Heckman; and CFO, John Neppl, have transformed Bunge's earnings potential through materially improved operational execution and expanded footprint and capabilities and accretive capital allocation, and Bunge is poised to demonstrate the power of its expanded network over the coming years with Viterra integration progressing, an improving operating environment and in-flight capital projects nearing completion. We're pleased to have CEO, Greg Heckman, and CFO, John Neppl, with us today to discuss Bunge's strategy and outlook. Thank you both for being here.

Thanks for having us.

Absolutely. And so maybe where I wanted to start is looking back. You're right now approaching the 1-year anniversary since Bunge's closing of the Viterra acquisition. Can you remind us of the deal rationale? Have there been any big surprises? And since bringing those 2 companies together and maybe how far away we are from seeing the true capabilities of the combined company?

So I'd say no big surprises. So we're really thrilled about how things are going. But yes, if you back up to the strategic rationale, I think everything we've been doing since we arrived at Bunge was really, focusing on ensuring that we have the capabilities to be the partner of choice for our customers, and that's the farmers and the consumers of food, feed and fuel. And everything that we were trying to do strategically to improve the capabilities of our global infrastructure to serve our customers lined up really well with Viterras' capabilities.

And so when you think about we put those companies together, they were much more upstream on the origination, and it really folded-in well with our Processing. And so they also brought us some oilseed processing on soy and sunseed on the soft side that fit very well, but just couldn't be more pleased about how the assets fit together, how the teams have culturally really taken off hitting the ground running, the progress that we've made against -- early on cost synergies, but more importantly, on the commercial synergies. So feel really good. It's just kind of accelerated everything we wanted to do strategically, not only from the assets, but most importantly, the people because they make all the difference in this industry.

So now that you have this expanded network, can you talk about the capabilities that gives you, obviously, much bigger in Argentina and crush and some of the other things that you talked about. How does that enable you to flex and tap into pockets of opportunity kind of year-round?

Yes. If you think about it, we now touch more farmers directly than anyone else on the globe. So we are in all of the key producing markets with more capillarity and granularity than anyone else. But most importantly, we can now connect those farmers to the consumers of feed, food and fuel because we're also in all of the key consuming markets with more capillarity and granularity than we've ever had.

When you look at our crushing footprint, we're now the largest global oilseed crusher. On soy, we added a key asset. You talked about in Argentina, we added Viterra's Renova asset, which is the largest global crushing facility and the lowest cost crushing facility on the globe. And it was being run alone before, and it's now plugged into our global network, and it gave us that geographical balance that we were kind of lacking in Argentina before.

And then on the sunseed side, we've got some great capabilities with their Argentine sunseed crush, which now offsets our European sunseed crush. And so we're there for those customers, right through the year-round cycle. So very, very excited about that capabilities that it brought us.

You spent several quarters talking about lack of visibility, the demand environment was a little spotty, more hand to mouth, and we've gotten the RVO. How has the demand environment evolved over the last several weeks and months?

Yes. Well, the obvious thing is demand for veg oil has gone up dramatically. And I think a lot of our customers on the downstream side, the energy industry, they were waiting, right, for certainty. I mean everybody was waiting for certainty, even to some degree, the food industry was holding off.

And what we've seen now is engagement on that side, in particular, related to RVO, not only the energy customers engaging with us, but the food industry as well now, they kind of see now, where things are headed. Now a lot of oil stocks were built up as we anticipated the RVO. I think everybody kind of knew it was coming, but no one had conviction to really go price-forward and really make commitments. So the industry continued to crush and continue to store the oil.

Now what we're seeing is demand likely here in the near term will outpace the production for a period of time until we pull these stocks down. And then ultimately, we'll find the right balance of supply and demand. But it definitely has provided that certainty everyone was waiting on.

The RVO and biofuels policy in the U.S. has -- gets so much focus. But obviously, it's not just a U.S. story in terms of growing biofuels demand. Can you discuss what you're seeing in some of the other parts of the world? What opportunities these energy policies kind of bring to you guys, in particular, Brazil, Indonesia? How should we think about that?

Sure. We're definitely seeing, I think, a different posture globally as people think about fuel security as well, and the demand is kind of up and to the right. So even in Europe, we just saw what happened on RED III, changing some of how [ EUCO ] is treated, that's going to drive more demand for rapeseed oil. So that would be good for softseed crush there in Europe. If you look at what's happening in Brazil, currently B15. They're talking about going to B16. They're doing some testing with the fuel fleet to see if -- how quickly they could move to that. And of course, that is all they've set their goal on the Fuel of The Future to get to B20. So they're on that path.

And then you look at Malaysia, which hasn't been talked about as much as Indonesia, but they're trying -- their goal is they're working to get to a B10 on palm oil blending. And then Indonesia is on their path. They've been the most aggressive about domestic demand, and they're on their path to B50. And then there are a number of projects. Of course, we're partners in biofuels with not only Repsol, but Chevron and then we continue to talk to a number of people. So there are projects being looked at all around the globe. And I think people just believe that, that policy around biofuels is going to continue to be constructive. And that's great, very supportive for the oil leg and to be able to run our global footprint. So we like the trend, up and to the right.

Okay. And maybe in that context, I mean, we've seen crush margins, particularly in the U.S. have gotten much better. Can you maybe compare and contrast current crush fundamentals globally versus what we saw in 2022, 2023 when things were obviously -- last very strong?

Yes. We're definitely seeing, if you look across Bunge's global footprint, average crush margins across soy better than last year, even though they're heavily inverted, that of course, the big driver to that has been the U.S. and here in North America around RVO policy, Softseeds as well globally across our footprint, average crush margins better than a year ago, again, heavily inverted, but driven as well by North America and some of that softseed crush in Argentina with good seed supply there.

So environment is good. There still is a lot of uncertainty in the back half of the year. We've got to see crops develop here in the Northern Hemisphere. We've got to continue to see kind of how the Middle East conflict plays out, that's definitely keeping some of people from committing the farmer as well forward, but especially some of the food and feed consumers out farther on the curve. And I think some of that uncertainty is shown there. But that has the opportunity to kind of improve month at a time or quarter to time as we go forward, depending on the fundamentals.

Yes. And I might just add, Andrew, that versus '22, '23, we're close on the crush margins themselves. But where we see a little bit of difference is on the refining premium side, isn't quite as robust today, and we didn't expect it to be. A lot of pretreatment has been built. The energy companies are -- have taken some of that -- the goal to take some of that margin in-house.

But we also expected the margin -- some of that margin potential to move back into the crush, and I think we're seeing some of that. So we're really happy with the crush margins, obviously, where they are today. The refining premiums have actually been fairly resilient. We're not at that '22, '23 level, but the demand for refined oil has still been good. The energy or the food companies have been -- demand has been good. So it's setting up pretty well.

You mentioned inverted curves in the back half of the year, some of the other uncertainties that you talked about. Which of those are maybe most material to the outlook positively or negatively depending on how they go? And I guess, how do you navigate what seems to be a daily changing evolving environment?

Yes. Let me answer first to kind of how we navigate. I mean, I think one of the things that we've been most pleased about are the way that the teams are working together because the diversification we now have across geographies, across crops, across our capabilities to serve all customers, is also allowing us the visibility into the physical price curves, the liquidity to be able to hedge ourselves and manage against the things we can control and then stress test and protect ourselves against possible outcomes on the things that we can't control.

And that's really about mining the optionality out of this global network as we serve our customers. So I think that -- when we talk about commercial synergies in some of the upside going forward, a lot of that's in the execution. Those are things that we control. The things we don't control, of course, how the crops develop, here in North America and then in South America? How long the conflict in the Middle East carries on? What that can mean to energy prices? Which kind of not only find their way through fertilizer, but into our manufacturing cost into all the transportation costs. And then also from a nutrients and input cost, if that starts to change shifts in acreage and what that does to the balance sheet, to pay attention to that. And then ultimately, we're in a year that's got a higher percent of El Nino. And if you get a weather event and what that means to be based on whether the farmers have cut back nutrients and started to mine the soil somewhat with whatever shift in acreage and then whatever effect you could get from weather.

So there's a lot that could happen to shift things either way, pretty dynamic, but I'm glad to be sitting here with a very global footprint and a great team.

On the -- I guess I wanted to get your perspective on the South America farmer. There's a lot of dialogue about what's going on with fertilizer prices and the implications in the U.S. and acreage and those types of things. Our understanding is that there's a lot that was pre-bought and maybe there's a little bit of insulation there. But maybe the South American farmer doesn't have as much of that because of the timing. So what do you think maybe the potential implications are, the health of the farmer in South America? Any perspective on how you're thinking around that?

Yes. We see North America kind of, as you said, in the U.S., most of the nutrients and inputs were in place. And so we think ultimately, it will shake-out that there was maybe a low single-digit percentage change to oilseeds, but not a big shift. The key will be spring of '27. If this drags on, we want to really watch what's going to happen in the U.S. and North America spring of '27.

In South America, the Brazilian farmers is in pretty good shape. They've had a good run. It's been a good few years. They continue to expand, if you look, continue to have record production in soybeans. They are -- they were buying fertilizer early, but they're not as covered as the U.S. was. As prices have moved up, now it will be important to see what's that behavior going to be, what's the crop mix going to be? And if they cut back, that will be something to watch on yields. So that will be key if this continues on, on how that shakes out in the fall. So we're watching that. It's a big flag.

Okay. With some of the geopolitical unrest, maybe some of the drought risk, are you seeing more opportunities to serve customers? Is that creating some opportunities there that maybe weren't before?

Yes. I would say ever since that we put this platform together, we're just way more complete with our end-customers and especially on the feed side, where we now have the feed grains and the protein meals and to be that complete supplier. So the conversations we're able to have not only with our farmer customers, with our consuming customers on feed, food and fuel of the problems that we can solve, whether it's logistical, helping them hedge-out on the price curve, they're very different conversations and very strategic. And I think that is one of the huge benefits, and I think that's some of the resilience that you've seen, what we were able to do here in first quarter and how we're thinking about the balance of the year.

When I think about your earnings baseline, one of the areas -- there's some areas that have been good guys. One of the areas that's been maybe a bad guy has been on the Merchandising side. When I think about demand, China has been pretty volatile from a demand perspective. Do you feel like China demand is structurally different than it was before? Can that ever come back to kind of the levels that we've seen historically? Maybe there's just geographic shifts. How do you think about China within the demand [ side ]?

Look, it's still absolutely one of the most important markets across all of the grains and oilseeds. We also operate in China in crushing, which is -- our team does a great job connecting that value chain from the farmer all the way through. So I think we run at higher capacity utilizations than some because of the way we're organized.

The demand has slowed some, some of the profitability in the animal segment, especially in pork has come off some. And then, of course, long-term, we know they continue to work to be more self-sufficient in developing their own ag production and their own yields as they prioritize food security. But they're always going to have multiple origins. That's why they want the relationship with the U.S. and with South America for food security to have the flexibility to need those markets at different times of the season. So continue to be, I think, the most important customer.

Okay. If the conflict in the Middle East were to end, question is, how does that change your fundamentals? But I think ultimately, what people are struggling to understand is how much is -- is fundamental and how much is a product of some of these geopolitical from a firming fundamental perspective. So how do you think about that? What would maybe be the implications?

Yes. I think how we think about it, these -- when these shocks happen, they generally -- there's a short-term -- and if you look back to the Ukraine conflict, there's a short-term shock, which can be positive or negative. But that's really the short-term. Then it's structurally, things get more complex and the financial markets react first, but then physically, you've got to move the goods and you've got to get them where they're going.

So for example, in the Middle East, it's -- we have not had an interruption of the supply chains, but we've had a disruption of the supply chain. So it's -- it's created complexity. It's created additional costs, different ports, moving things over land, but we're able to take care of the customers. What we're debating should it end, what's kind of a short-term impact, a midterm impact and a longer-term impact.

Short term, you'll see people have been pulling their stocks down. So you'll see people replenish those stocks and rebuild pipelines, which have definitely gotten shorter. Then you'd argue you may see additional security stocks build. And that may not only be in the Middle East, globally, I think people are less comfortable with what's the art of the possible. Their stress testing is a different answer today than it was 2-years ago or 5-years ago. So you may see additional security stocks built globally, and that may kind of start to change some of the S&Ds that what looks like heavier stocks to use, some of those stocks aren't available to the rest of the market. And so you really got to think about what is the real balance.

That ultimately means more volatility, more dislocation if we have a weather problem or some other government policy change or some other trade disruption. And that's what we're really built to help solve. And then as you're solving those physical things, that's generally when you get paid for managing that risk and kind of untangling that problem.

Okay. That's helpful. I feel like I always ask you about soybean meal and kind of surprisingly resilient demand...

You do.

I know I do. I know I do. I'm going to ask you again. There was just so much concern in the market about like, "hey, we've got all this crush capacity coming online, what are we going to do with the soybean meal"? And here we are. I think soybean meal has been a really nice piece of the story, surprisingly positive piece of the story. Have you been surprised? Did the market just get it wrong? And maybe what's been driving that resilience?

Yes. I think if somebody goes back and looks, we always said the meal will find a home. The market will work and people love to feed soybean meal. It is the most effective nutrient. The price of lysing matters, the price of feed grains matters and feed grains have been very well supplied, and they've been feeding very high rates of soy and corn.

We also talked about the fact that Bunge, we were net short of -- we were marketing way more soybean meal than we produce before Viterra, we still continue to. And we were making investments, right, in our handling facilities in the river, in the P&W and in the Gulf to have additional capabilities to be able to export soybean meal to feed those customers. And part of that was we said that we believe the rest of the world was operating at lower inclusion rates than we were seeing, the more developed and more sophisticated markets do. So we thought there was not only going to continue to be volume growth, which continues to tick away, whether it's just purely the number of people in the globe, but also wealth of the middle class and they're eating more animal protein or -- animal protein, which means more meal demand.

So I think that's continued to tick away and then the higher inclusion rates as well. And then we've kind of tipped -- whether it's GLP-1s or the food curve has now been kind of tipped over in the U.S. I mean there seems to be a bit of a shift to protein from carbs. And then you've got very high beef prices. So people are eating more pork and more poultry, which, of course, eat a lot more meal. So you've got just -- it's no one factor, but it's a number of factors that continues to deliver.

Given the strength of what we see on the curve, would you expect a similar type of supply response at some point? Do we see more crush capacity come online? Or are conditions different now than before where maybe that's not the case?

Most of the crush in the U.S. has been built-out. I think maybe there's another 5% to come online or something. Our plant is going to come online later this year in Destrehan. I think some of the investors and those that build saw that if you've got a -- the financials are one way, if you've got a network to plug into, if you're stand-alone, it's a little bit -- it can be more challenging at times. So I think that matters.

Also the cost to build, replacement cost now for about a 5,000-ton plant is about $1 billion. So that's a different calculation for the investors. And you're not hedging these plants when you spend that kind of money for 3-months or 3-years -- and you can't hedge them for 3-years. I mean these plants live for over 3 decades. So the first thing that happens is de-bottlenecking. There could be some of the soy capacity be switched over to soft capacity. As oil drives the leg, you could see some of that shift. And then eventually, if the economics are there long enough and the risk is right, there could be some capacity added, but we don't think that will be the first thing done.

And what we've seen, Andrew, in particular, with our experience, labor is really hard to get, particularly the talented belt skilled labor to electricians, all the stuff we need to get done at the plant. The construction trade, really, really tough to get. Resources are scarce because there's so much other building going on, data centers and all that kind of thing. And as Greg mentioned, the cost, I mean, we are feeling much better today that we're on the tail end of our 4 large projects than at the beginning of them because it's been a challenge and that we only see it getting a little bit tougher here in the near term.

Okay. We talked about some of the risks on the crop side that kind of may or may not be there. If you talk about how the platform is positioned to deal with periods of crop disruption in certain regions? So I guess there's a lot of discussion about drought and things like that happening right now. So I guess when we see those headlines, when we see estimates changing, how should we think about the potential implications for your business?

I think that even if you look at Q1, where Merchandising was very challenging because the balance sheets continue, corn and wheat continue to be well supplied globally. But a number of the assets in our system are flexible, whether it's origination or storage or the ports. And we can then point those to support the oilseed, soft and soy crush there in the first quarter to support where the margins are. So we're able to look to where is the need for our customers and where are the best margins, and that's where we put our global system to work.

So if you end up with seeing South America grow less corn and grow more soy because of the fertilizer prices, their ethanol production continue to grow down there. So they got more domestic demand. So you've got less corn exports out of South America. We'll move those assets over to soy, more soy supply will be good for our crushing and our soy exports. But then that opens up the opportunity for more corn exports out of the U.S. So we'll shift the global system to serve the customers and where the margins are to run it.

And that's the other thing you talked about Argentina. In the past, when Argentina would run harder, it could be bad for the global crushing, and we were underrepresented in Argentina. Now we're not only the biggest crusher in Argentina, we're the lowest cost crusher in Argentina, and it balances our global system. So we now can benefit as Argentina continues to recover and decide where we run the crush harder, whether that's in Argentina or whether that's in Europe. So the optionality that exists in our global system not only helps us ensure that we serve our customers that we ensure that we serve our stockholders.

Okay. I wanted to ask about the mid-cycle baseline. You guys recently updated it at the Investor Day. At the time, you got a question and acknowledged that there were some remaining uncertainties. We didn't have an RVO, you're guiding into that. So had to navigate that. Now that we have finalized RVO details, is there anything you would have done differently with respect to the baseline than what you articulated at the Investor Day?

Yes, not really. I think the purpose of our mid-cycle baseline was not to predict where crush margins were going in the next year or 2. It was about looking at our historical results and saying, what do we think kind of in a mid-cycle environment, there's going to be better, there's going to be worse. Where do we think on average have we been over the long run? And we look back at '22 and '23, great years. We looked at '25, not so good. We looked at '19 and '20, not so good. And so we ended up -- and we looked globally as well. We looked at the U.S., Canada, we looked at South America, we looked at Europe. Ultimately came with some numbers, we said, okay, we'll define it as this, that we think has been kind of a historical mid-cycle.

Now we may do better than that. And that's fine, and we'll explain that, that we're performing above baseline or above mid-cycle, which in the case today, some of our margins are well above mid-cycle. And we'll just explain that. Now in the long run, are we operating at a different level in the future? We'll see. And then there may be a time where it makes sense for us to update that. But ultimately, it was really about just putting a benchmark out there that we could lean to and point to and say, are we performing above or below that.

So you look at it today and say $46 soy crush margin and a $76 softseed margin looked conservative. We do look at it globally, though. We're not as good in Brazil and Argentina right now, and Europe is probably in line. So overall, we are performing a little bit above baseline on the crush side. Part of that's the reason why we took our forecast up $1.50 on the year after we closed Q1. But looking at it over the long run, we've got -- we're underperforming in Merchandising, in our Grain Merchandising and Milling segment, which baseline, we're both below baseline there. So there's a lot of moving pieces. But all in all, we feel good about certainly where the crush margins are today versus what we modeled, but we'll point to that. We can explain to you, how we're above baseline there. But again, the point of the whole mid-cycle baseline was kind of set a benchmark, not a prediction, not a forecast. It's a benchmark that we use to help explain where we are from a performance standpoint.

And I may add one thing. The thing we wanted people to really understand out of that conversation was we've got to give the guidance with the mid-cycle. But regardless, we believe that the global network that we have put together and the team running it that it has more resiliency in the earnings, the flexibility, the capabilities, the optionality that exists, the reach that we have and the scope and scale, it definitely means when the environment is above mid-cycle, you're going to see higher highs, right? And that's for sure. And if you look right now in the mix, the Merchandising is behind, the Oilseeds picking it up, that diversification helps. But the other really key thing is that when things are tougher, you're going to see higher-lows. And that's part of the resiliency and the diversification that we've built.

Okay. That makes sense. When you have the bridge on the baseline, one of the pieces was the in-flight capital projects, you mentioned kind of nearing the end now. Obviously, the return assumptions within that as you assigned a certain amount of earnings upside from that. Should we assume or are the return -- is the return profile better in this environment currently than maybe what is assumed in that bridge, just given kind of the strength of the margin environment and what you're seeing currently?

Yes. I think of it this way. So we build these projects and we think about a long-term return profile, not any given -- current market environment. But we do feel pretty good about where they sit today versus what our long-term assumptions were. Clearly, with Destrehan, which is our -- in our joint venture with Chevron, we're going to bring that online probably at the end of Q3, very good environment today for that, above what we would have assumed certainly when we modeled it. And so we'll have a head start on the returns there, and we'll get a quicker payback on that expansion. And certainly, we're going to like those returns in the near term, obviously.

The other projects we have are a little bit less dependent on current crush margins. So our Morristown facility, the SPC plant, really more specialty into the food value-add going into the food side of things, plant protein-based, very, very specific applications for customers. It's going to be less price-sensitive, less about the current crush margin. Same thing with our Destrehan export terminal. That's really going to be driven by elevation margins in the exports of corn and soybean meal and things like that, how much throughput and demand there's going to be for elevations.

And then our big plant in Westzaan in the Netherlands is a refining plant, is about specialty oils. So it's a little bit less dependent on just crush itself. It's more about the demand on the food side for the specialty oils that we provide, and we're going to be a low-cost producer there. And I think we feel very good again about the long-term return profile there. So less dependent on the absolute crush margin.

Can you remind us the timing? I know you mentioned one is [indiscernible] the other is Q3. But can you remind us the timing of those projects coming on and kind of how we should think about the ramp phasing?

Yes. So Destrehan, as I said, kind of end of Q3, very similar time frame with our export terminal right across -- basically right across the levy from the crush plant. Those will be late Q3. Really, you got a little bit of ramp-up time with the new plant because effectively, what we've done is build a new plant next to the old plant. So you figure it's probably going to take 3 to 6 months to really get rolling. We're going to probably start with processing soybeans, even though ultimately, that's about softseed. It's going to be about canola and winter canola, mostly through that plant. But we'll be up and running and I think operating pretty well inside a year.

The Morristown plant, we started running that plant early this year. We had ribbon cutting last week. That's a little bit more of a time line, given food qualification with food customers. The products that -- some of the products we're designing there are unique. It takes a little bit more time to get through the system and to commission and get the thing up and running. So we really expect probably not to see a really strong run rate until back half of '27 is when we really think we'll start performing well. And then, of course, with Westzaan in Netherlands starting in Q1 of '27, it will probably take anywhere from 6 to 12 months, probably closer to 12-months to really get rolling. So I think the big impact you'll see in '28 and beyond of all these together, all of them on the various stages of ramp-up during that time.

Okay. I'd love to hear you talk about some of the synergies with Viterra. You obviously gave us an update, kind of laid out some timing at the Investor Day across the network and commercial synergies. What is still left, what have you done? What is still left to do? And when you think about upside, remember, there's a big bar, with a little plus on it. Where is the upside opportunity should that come about?

Yes. I can start on the cost side, Greg, and you want to start with the commercial. So on the cost side, we originally had targeted about $250 million. We've got $190 million of savings built into our forecast for '26. So we've -- and as part of our increase that we put in Investor Day, another $0.50 a share, that's roughly taken us up another $100 million of cost synergies. So we moved that $250 million to $350 million, and we're pushing really, really hard to bring that a year sooner. So we're going to have a vast majority of it done by the end of '28. We had originally given ourselves 4-years. We're backing that up as much as we can. And a big chunk of it, I think, we'll see significant progress in '27, and then we'll get the vast majority of the remainder in '28.

But we feel -- and we're not going to stop there. I mean now we're looking at how we leverage our global service centers. We got a couple of key global processing centers where we do a lot of our transactional activity, and we're building more capability there, and we're adding -- investing in technology as well to get more efficient. And I think so we'll -- we look at $350 million as really a stopping point, but then it becomes about continuous improvement for the overall company. And we're really, really focused on that. So I would just say we feel extremely good about the progress we've made in a pretty complicated deal, but the teams have done amazing work. And so we're pretty proud of it.

And when you think about the plus and that really comes in the commercial synergies, right? There are some of the things that you're able to do quickly. We talked about we've got 400 vessels a day, moving somewhere around the globe. That's already run by one team, on one system, one face to the market. That had a lot of leverage. That's already been executed, things we're able to do and negotiating across our global network, whether it's locally on trucks and rail and barge or on vessels, some of those things become structural and some of them are just opportunities that are passed along through the value chain between the farmer and the end-consumer.

But then really, it's the upside becomes on the commercial synergies, on the opportunity. And that's really flexing the system, thinking about, okay, not only which assets are we going to run, where do we invest that we have continued to improve our cost footprint, which assets do we not need? Do we have any holes where we need to bolt-on acquisitions, where do we de-bottleneck and where do we get the combined system really fine-tuned and fit-for-purpose. And that you just -- those are not -- those become structural. We get to keep them. You see them fall out kind of every quarter. And then depending on the environment, they can be smaller or larger.

Got it. Okay. On capital allocation, I think your leverage ratio is below your target, but I know debt paydown is still near-term priority. How much debt are you looking to pay down? Kind of what's the time line to which we should think about that playing out?

Yes. I think when we started the year, we were elevated a bit on our leverage from what our long-term target is. But as we've gone through the year and our earnings outlook has improved, we actually think now we'll be relatively in line by the end of the year just from a stronger earnings perspective. So our focus on debt paydown may not necessarily need to be there. I think it's going to depend on how we look at '27 and '28. But I think right now, we feel like we'll be in a pretty good position by the end of the year.

And so if maybe debt paydown is not -- doesn't need to be as much of a focus, what are the alternative uses? And in particular, on buybacks, I know in the baseline, you've talked about $700 million. When is that kind of applicable because you haven't committed to that for this year. So -- and when does that start -- and just broadly, the 50% of discretionary cash flow.

Yes. So our plan for this year, right now, we've got $250 million yet to do related to the Viterra transaction. We plan to and expect to get that done this year, and we should get that done this year. We have still a significant amount of CapEx in our pipeline with the wrap-up of those 4 large projects and some other de-bottlenecking projects. So that's going to largely consume all of our free cash flow for the year.

But as we head into '27, then we're going to start looking at the new capital allocation formula that we laid out, where we're going to look at 50% of our discretionary cash flow to go back to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks. That will begin in '27. As we determine how much is available, it's going to be driven largely by how much cash we're generating. And I think the assumption is $700 million a year of available capital for share buybacks is based on our $13 run rate baseline that we're forecasting out in the future. If we get there sooner, we'll have more available. But we expect beginning in '27 to start following that formula. Whether we get to $700 million a year, if it take us a couple of years to get there or whatever, that's -- it's still out there. And it's -- again, at $13 a share, that should be about $700 million a year of share buybacks. If we make less than that, as we ramp up toward that $13, it will be a little bit lower, but we -- that's absolutely going to be a key part of our go-forward plan.

I appreciate it's still early days with Viterra. But you did mention if we need to look at the portfolio, there's bolt-on M&A opportunities, what have you. Is that an area where we could see more capital put to work? Or maybe what would be the opportunities? What would be interesting as you evaluate the portfolio today?

We're always running that analysis on where is the best return on that next dollar of capital. John keeps us honest with his buyback formula on our returns. And so we want to protect our capabilities and continue to look at how crops are shifting where customers are growing and looking at those external factors to make sure that where we have those strong networks that we protect those, whether that's through bolt-on de-bottlenecking brownfields or even greenfields, but we'd always rather buy something than build something. It just -- it goes quicker. You heard us talking about that.

And then also any of the gaps that we've got. We want to fill those in, to be the partner of choice, to have the capabilities that we need to fulfill in what we expect to continue to be a pretty challenging world, whether it goes back towards globalization or it actually gets easier because every origin is open every destination, or we continue to have de-globalization, where it's more complex. We're going to see more dislocation. We're going to see more volatility. And so having those capabilities. And so that's where we're constantly thinking about where the capital is, where we improve our networks.

And that's whether it's across soy crushing, softseed crushing, our merchant business with the strong feed grains, corn, our global wheat franchise or our strong milling -- wheat milling franchise in Brazil. So -- and of course, tropical oils and John talked about our plant protein business. So we're operating where we feel we have the right to win, where we have the cost structure and the capabilities, and we are very focused in that space.

And while we have a long-term capital allocation strategy, obviously, any given year may not work exactly perfectly because when there's opportunity, sometimes you got to jump on it. And so there may be cases along the way where some of that opportunity to consolidate the industry, buy an asset that we've wanted, that may come about, and we may need to jump on that at that point. But over the long run, we're still going to maintain that long-term discipline. And we'll explain in the short run. We did this because of this reason, and we'll make it clear as to why we moved on something at any given time because we always say you got to shoot them while they're flying.

We only have about a minute left. Any final messages you want to leave the audience with?

I'd just say it's been it's been great this last year, bringing the teams at Viterra and Bunge together. And we got a 208-year-old company here, but it feels like a newborn. We're having a lot of fun. There's a lot of energy in the company. We've never had more capabilities, more talent to be able to execute against what is probably the most complicated global scenario that we've ever seen. And I'm going to quit saying it can't get more complicated because it keeps getting more complicated. But I feel really good about where we're at and how the team is performing. And thanks for having us.

Yes. We appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Good day, and welcome to the Bunge Global First Quarter 2026 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, Betsy, and thank you all for joining us this morning for our first quarter 2026 earnings call.

Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well.

I'd like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors.

On the call this morning are Greg Heckman, Bunge's CEO; and John Neppl, our CFO. I'll now turn the call over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking our team for their hard work and adaptability in what has been a very dynamic start to the year. The first quarter of 2026 was one of the more rapidly changing operating environments we've seen in recent years, and the team executed with the discipline and speed that defines this organization and delivered strong results.

Even since our Investor Day last month, the world has changed considerably. The Middle East conflict, which was just emerging when we gathered in March, has continued to evolve. In addition to the very real impacts to those involved, it has meaningfully disrupted global trade flows, logistics costs and supply chains. In response, we are taking prudent operational steps to support the continuity of supply for our customers, including working with relevant regulators, policymakers and partners to preserve essential commodity flows and manage risk. These actions focus on maintaining flexibility in shipping arrangements and leveraging our global capabilities and regional capillarity to continue serving customers reliably.

In the U.S., a bright spot in agriculture right now is biofuels. With everything going on in the world at the moment, having more biofuels in the supply is good for everyone. We need policy that supports the sector, and that's exactly what the EPA did with the recent RVO decision. We commend the agency for setting a volume that supports the investments made by fuel producers, oilseed processors and farmers in supplying biofuels to the market. Globally, there are many variables still at play, not the least of which is the uncertain duration of the Middle East conflict and the impact that will have on everything from farmer inputs, including fertilizer to fuel prices and what that might mean for the mix of crops farmers plant in the next growing season.

What we can say with confidence is that Bunge's business is designed for complexity and change. Our combination of an integrated global platform, disciplined risk management and operational excellence allows us to perform through the cycle, and this quarter is clearly evidence of that.

Looking at our operating results, the first quarter exceeded our expectations. The higher results were primarily driven by our soybean and softseed processing and refining segments, reflecting strong execution in a dynamic environment and improved market conditions. To drill down a little deeper, our results underscore the advantages of our larger platform and reach. While Grain Merchandising performance was impacted by distribution-related factors, including higher logistics and energy costs, those same conditions drove higher demand for renewable feedstocks. This in turn benefited our soy and softseed value chains.

Turning to our outlook. Based on what we can see today, including the strength of Q1 and the forward curves as we look at the balance of the year, we are increasing our full year adjusted EPS guidance range to $9 to $9.50, and that's up from the $7.50 to $8 we provided on our fourth quarter call. While the current macroeconomic and geopolitical environments remain uncertain, our balanced footprint and diversified value chains give us the tools to adapt. The long-term fundamentals driving demand for our products and services remain firmly in place, and we're well positioned to execute in any environment.

With that, I'll turn it over to John for a deeper look at our financials and outlook.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to the earnings highlights on Slide 5. Our reported first quarter earnings per share was $0.35 compared to $1.48 in the first quarter of 2025. Our reported results included an unfavorable mark-to-market timing difference of $1.28 per share and an unfavorable impact of $0.20 related to Viterra transaction and integration costs. Adjusted EPS was $1.83 in the first quarter versus $1.81 in the prior year. Adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes or EBIT was $661 million in the quarter versus $406 million last year.

In the Soybean Processing and Refining segment, higher results were primarily driven by South America, reflecting stronger processing performance in Argentina and Brazil. North America also delivered higher results across both processing and refining. In the destination value chain, higher origination in Brazil was more than offset by lower processing results in Europe and Asia. And results in global oils merchandising activities also increased, reflecting strong execution. Higher process volumes were largely attributed to the combined company's expanded production capacity in Argentina. Process volumes were also higher in North America and Brazil. Higher merchandise volumes reflected the combined company's expanded soybean origination footprint.

In the Softseed Processing and Refining segment, results were higher across all regions. In Argentina, results increased in both processing and refining. In North America, higher processing results more than offset slightly lower refining results. In Europe, higher processing and biodiesel results more than offset lower refining results. Origination results in Canada and Australia increased, reflecting our expanded footprint in large crops. Results from global oils merchandising activities also increased, reflecting strong execution. Higher softseed process volumes primarily reflected the combined company's increased production capacity in Argentina, Canada and Europe and higher merchandise volumes were driven by the company's expanded softseeds origination footprint.

For the Tropical Oils and Specialty Ingredients segment, higher results in Asia, Europe and global oils merchandising activities were partially offset by lower results in North America. In the Grain Merchandising and Milling segment, higher results in wheat milling, global cotton and commercial services were more than offset by lower results in ocean freight, which was impacted by the significant spike in bunker fuel costs. Results in Global Grains Merchandising were in line with last year. Higher volumes primarily reflected the company's expanded grain handling footprint and capabilities, along with large global grain crops. Prior year results included corn milling, which was divested in 2025.

The increase in corporate expenses was primarily driven by the addition of Viterra. The year-over-year comparison was also impacted by the timing of performance-based compensation and a $15 million cash benefit received in 2025 related to a prior joint venture. Other results were in line with the prior year. Net interest expense of $136 million was up in the quarter compared to last year, reflecting our expanded footprint and merchandising activities with the addition of Viterra, partially offset by lower average net interest rates.

Let's turn to Slide 6, where you can see our adjusted EPS and EBIT trends over the past 4 years along with the trailing 12 months. With the favorable biofuel environment, synergy capture and ramp-up of in-flight projects, the earnings trend is expected to improve.

Slide 7 details our capital allocation. For the first quarter, we generated $530 million of adjusted funds from operations. After allocating $95 million to sustaining CapEx, which includes maintenance, environmental health and safety, we had $435 million of discretionary cash flow available. We paid $136 million in dividends, invested approximately $240 million in growth and productivity-related CapEx and invested $105 million to acquire IFF's soy protein concentrate and processing businesses. This results in a net use of $47 million.

Moving to Slide 8. At quarter end, readily marketable inventories, or RMI, exceeded net debt by approximately $400 million. Our adjusted leverage ratio, which reflects our adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.6x at the end of the first quarter versus 1.9x at the end of 2025.

Slide 9 highlights our liquidity position, which remains strong. At the end of the first quarter, we had committed credit facilities of approximately $9.7 billion, all of which were unused and available. We also had essentially all of our $3 billion commercial paper program unutilized, providing ample liquidity to manage the ongoing capital needs of our larger combined company.

Please turn to Slide 10. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted ROIC was 8% and ROIC was 6.7%. Adjusting for construction in progress on our large multiyear projects and excess cash on our balance sheet, our adjusted ROIC would increase to 9% and ROIC to 7.2%.

Moving to Slide 11. For the trailing 12 months, we produced discretionary cash flow of approximately $1.35 billion and a cash return on equity of 9.1% compared to our cost of equity of 7.2%.

Please turn to Slide 12 and our 2026 outlook. Taking into account Q1 results, the current margin and macro environment and forward curves, we now expect full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $9 to $9.50, which is up from our previous range of $7.50 to $8. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, the environment remains complex. Forward curves in certain regions have reacted, but significant uncertainty remains, particularly in the second half of the year.

For the full year compared to our previous outlook, Soybean and Softseed Processing and Refining segment results are forecasted to be higher. Tropical Oils and Specialty Ingredients and Grain Merchandising and Milling segment results are expected to be lower and corporate and other results are expected to be in line. Additionally, we now expect the following for 2026, an adjusted annual effective tax rate in the range of 22% to 26%, which is down slightly from our previous expectation of 23% to 27%. Net interest expense in the range of $620 million to $660 million, which is up from our previous range of $575 million to $625 million, primarily due to higher short-term debt levels supporting an expected increase in working capital. Capital expenditures in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion and depreciation and amortization of approximately $975 million.

With that, I'll turn things back over to Greg for some closing comments.

Thanks, John. So before we turn to Q&A, I just wanted to offer a few thoughts. The themes we laid out at Investor Day have not changed, and this quarter reinforces them. Bunge today is stronger, more agile and better positioned than at any point in our history. We've transformed our portfolio and strengthened our operating model.

With the integration of Viterra, we now have an unmatched global footprint and set of capabilities, supported by a disciplined approach to growth and capital allocation. We're now a more diversified business across geographies, origination, processing and crops, which, as we demonstrated this quarter, helps us mitigate risk and bring more balance to our processing footprint. We're also entering a meaningful phase of value creation, driven by the contribution from our organic investments and Viterra-related synergies.

Viterra cost synergies are running ahead of plan, and we've identified significant network and commercial opportunities. At the same time, we're making progress in other key areas, further sharpening our portfolio and positioning Bunge for the future. In March, we announced the closing of our acquisition of IFF's soy protein, lecithin and processing business.

This transaction complements Bunge's existing protein portfolio and expands the company's lecithin offerings, reinforcing our commitment to providing a diverse and reliable range of ingredient solutions to our food customers. As we said at our Investor Day, it doesn't matter whether the world moves further towards deglobalization or swings back toward globalization. We're positioned to deliver. This is a business with durable earnings power and the ability to create value in any environment.

We've built a business that provides real differentiated solutions for farmers and for our food, feed and fuel customers, and we're continuing to advance across everything we do. We have the right people, assets, systems and strategies in place to manage uncertainty, adapt to external challenges and remain focused on what truly matters, serving our customers and creating value for all stakeholders.

And with that, we'll turn to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Manav Gupta with UBS.

Congrats on the very strong quarter and the guidance raise. I want to just make a quick comment. A lot of time, Analyst Days are well -- the intentions are right, but the execution is not the best. Your Analyst Day in March was an extremely well-organized event, a great use of everybody's time. And I know the whole team worked very hard, particularly, Mark. So I wanted to congratulate the whole team for putting together a very strong Analyst Day in March. It really helped us out.

So my quick question to you here is, we are seeing a very strong macro. Yes, RVO is strong, but world is seeing distillate shortages. U.S. can avoid some of those distillate shortages if we run harder in renewable diesel and biodiesel, we think we have estimated that we have 25% more capacity to run harder, which would probably translate to 1.2 billion additional gallons, which can be made in the U.S., which will help solve some of these shortages. But to probably make 1 billion gallons more of renewable diesel in '26 than '25, you probably need 8 billion pounds of additional feedstock and maybe 50% of that is soybean oil, the most easily sourced feedstock.

So can you talk a little bit about the dynamics out there, what you're seeing out there from renewable diesel, biodiesel producers. Obviously, margins are great, but there also are some of the refiners basically looking there and saying, we need to run harder on renewable diesel, biodiesel. That's the only way we can actually avoid some of the shortfalls, which the global markets are seeing. If you could talk about that.

Sure. I'll start, and John, you can add on if you want. But no, you're exactly right. The market has set up where we've got clarity in the U.S. around the RVO, which has been very helpful. But the other driver, of course, we continue to see policy evolving not only in Brazil and Indonesia, which have been moving to utilize more biofuels but -- and renewable feedstocks, but also in Europe. So there's definitely a macro shift. Everyone is understanding the value of fuel security at home.

And then the big driver, of course, is higher crude prices and higher diesel prices, right, which makes even some of the discretionary blending work on renewable diesel and the traditional biodiesel. So there are just a lot of support. And of course, that drives that value back to the farm gate, to the farmer, and that sends the right signal for mix of crop in production. So it is a good environment, although the forward curves are heavily inverted, and that continues to show kind of some of the uncertainty of the speed that it will play out. But the supply is there, the stocks are there, and we're here to supply the vegetable oils that are needed.

The next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

Greg, John, congrats, and I can only echo what Manav just said. So same from my side. Following up on that, and you just talked about the future curves a little bit being inverted. So maybe help us putting into context what you're seeing right now. As we look at the guidance, I mean, you made close to $2, so there's somewhere like $7, $7.5 to be made based on your current guidance. How should we think about the cadence? Because clearly, about 2 months ago, you talked about more like $0.80 to $0.90 for the first quarter, and now it was basically $1 more because of everything that has changed through March. So how should we think about 2Q and then maybe the second half balance as well a little bit of like a 3Q, 4Q cadence, what you're seeing right now in the market?

Yes. Thanks, Ben. This is John. So our previous guidance had been 30%, 70%, first half, second half was how we saw it back when we had our first quarter forecast of low $0.80 range. But now we're looking at the year to be 40% first half, 60% second half. And then when we look at the second half, it's a little more even, but we're looking at 45%, 55%, Q3, Q4 is kind of how we see it playing out right now.

Okay. Perfect. And I mean, given your guidance update, just real quick, you've taken down internally or given on your commentary, a little bit the tropical oils and specialty ingredients as well as the grain merchandising and milling. I wanted to understand a little bit more why the merchandising piece has been taken down considering all the disruption in the market? What are you seeing? What are the issues here?

Yes, Ben, I'll start and Greg can jump in. But I think first, that's always the toughest to forecast is our Grain Merchandising and Milling segment. But in the first quarter, we got kind of off to a rough start. You can see the numbers certainly below where we would expect it to be, largely driven by the ocean freight dynamics, the bunker fuel costs that hit us in Q1. And looking forward, it's hard to see when things are going to turn. We think still balance of the year we'll have better results in that segment. But certainly, given the tough start to the year, we're calling it down at this point. And obviously, depending on what happens dynamically in the market, we'll be in a position to take advantage of it. But just -- it's really driven by that slow start to the year.

And the feed grains and wheat do continue to be fairly heavy S&Ds there. Now we'll see as we see the mix of how crops are planted as we see how the crops develop and then, of course, how we see how weather develops here over the balance of the year, those will be key things to watch and those balance sheets could tighten up.

On the food side, there's really -- on the tropicals, we've seen our food customers some lower volumes overall. And then, of course, we've seen cocoa prices come off. So our cocoa butter equivalent business, we're seeing -- while volumes are still okay, their margins are definitely down from the dynamics we saw previously. And then just this uncertainty driven by the geopolitical situation as well as some of the tariff uncertainty has them shorter bought as well on the food side, which is always a little tougher on margin. So it's kind of no one thing, but a little bit of everything, and that's what's reflected in the change in the tropicals forecast.

And then, Ben, maybe I'll tack on a couple of additional things. We had an unusually low tax rate in Q1, just driven by some discrete timing items. But over the year, we expect our tax rate to normalize more into that range that I mentioned in prepared remarks. And so we'll see a little bit higher tax rate in Q2 and then throughout the rest of the year. And then we are expecting higher interest costs as well beginning in Q2, just given the level of high prices and relatively large working capital usage we anticipate for the balance of the year.

The next question comes from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

You've got kind of 3 businesses, I guess, embedded in the soybean and softseed segments, processing, refining and merchandising. I think the processing strength, especially nearer term is pretty transparent. But what about what you're seeing on the refining side and maybe oilseed merchandising side? Are you seeing any pickup in those businesses given some of the crush dynamics carrying through? Or is the strength really more isolated to that crush processing side?

Yes. Tom, this is John. I'll start, and Greg can jump in. I think refining premiums, while they're not -- they're certainly not where we were back in '22 and '23. They've been pretty resilient. And refining volume has still been strong. Big demand on the food side continues. We'll see how things play out here with the market and inflation given the current global environment. But we've been pretty pleased with refining volume and the margins have been pretty resilient, as I mentioned, on the food side. And of course, on energy, there are still energy customers taking refined, maybe not to the level they were back in '22 and '23, but it's done reasonably well.

Then on the oilseed merchandising side, we had really strong results in Q1 on the merchandising side with farmer selling and origination. And so that was a big driver of some of the strong performance that we reflect now in those 2 segments. The specific oilseed origination gets reflected there, and that was part of what helped drive the strong results.

And when you think about the end-to-end, it's part of what we talked about, that margin can move around, right, between origination, processing, merch and refining and distribution. And with our larger global system, our team now has, whether it's our origination assets, our storage assets, our distribution assets to point them to where the most value can be created to support our system. And so with a larger soy and softseed footprint, it is supported by that merch capabilities as well.

So while you may not see it, that's where you got to really think about the power of the total system. And then as John said, the higher prices that we saw as the conflict started, the higher flat price run-up, we really saw better farmer selling globally, really kind of everywhere, but Argentina. And of course, that -- you saw some of that reflected in those value chains in those oilseed and soy processing value chains, softseed and soy processing.

Okay. And then you noted how inverted the crush curve is. Why is visibility so limited in the second half? And just to confirm, this is kind of a follow-up to Ben's question on cadence. This guidance increase is really more about the first half strength because of that visibility?

Yes. We've got a number of factors that are playing out. One, you don't have the farmers engaging out forward. You also don't have the end consumer engaging out forward. So the curves are reflecting the uncertainty, but they're also affecting the lack of liquidity that's out there. You've got the length of the conflict, of course, is a concern. We've got the crop development here in the Northern Hemisphere that we'll continue to watch.

And then there is increasing concern about El Nino developing, what that could mean. And then we've had 2 tough softseed crops the last 2 years in Europe. And so we're waiting in new crop, if we see the good sunseed crop in Europe, you could see some improvement. But again, that's all yet to develop. And then we still have China-U.S. trade is yet to play out. We could see some additional soy business. Could there be any old crop. It feels like it's getting kind of laid or some new crop business that could change the soy flows. And then could we even see some corn business done with China. So there's just a lot of, I guess, open switches on how this will play out, and I think the market is reflecting that.

The next question comes from Pooran Sharma with Stephens.

Congrats on the quarter. I wanted to just maybe get your take on where soy oil inventories are headed or maybe the cadence of tightening. I think on the last call, you mentioned if we go to a 5.6 billion gallon RVO or anything with -- in that range of 5.2 billion to 5.6 billion, you could see soy oil inventories going from being in excess to being kind of tightened up within a few quarters. But given the half RIN restriction being delayed until 2028, does this change your view on that cadence of tightening that you had on the last call?

Yes. I think the delayed RVO, definitely, we saw stocks really build. So I think you're right. We'll now see those start to draw down as we move through the year and move into Q3 and especially Q4. And then, of course, some of that will depend globally on policy in Indonesia, in Brazil and in Europe. And then some of those policies even in Europe are put in place, will they be retroactive or not. And so some of those can affect the demand and how fast these stocks get drawn down.

Okay. I appreciate that color. And just on the follow-up, I wanted to understand Argentina with a little bit more granularity. We had thought bean availability would be tighter in Q1, just given prior selling patterns and the timing of harvest in Argentina. So I was just wondering if you could help us frame up what drove the stronger-than-expected processing there. I think you called it out in the press release. Was it timing, better origination? Any color there would be helpful.

Yes. Part of it, we're just operating with a bigger footprint now. The combined Viterra Bunge footprint there, we're now the biggest ag business in Argentina. So our capabilities to execute. And then we saw some farmer selling. But then, of course, as the rain came in, that really slowed down. And then, of course, we're going to watch closely how that affects any bean quality.

So as we move forward with harvest, we kind of expect the farmer selling to start to pick back up there in Argentina. But we just got a better origination and processing footprint than we had before and the way that it's working together as we brought those teams together and running that as one business. We also have a very nice sunseed business there in Argentina, and that is a very nice seasonal offset to our European sunseed business. And if you remember, a lot of the brands really favor that sun oil. So now we're able to give year-round supply to that, and we've had good sunseed production. And so that's also been helpful to Argentina.

The next question comes from Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research.

First question is related to the inverted curves and it's 2 part. Greg, you mentioned that the end consumer is not engaging as much. And so just wondering, is that on both oil and meal? Because I would think with the RVO visibility that on the oil side, they would be. And wondering if you could just share with us where you're seeing the most inverted curves or I should say, disparity between where you think they should be and where they are right now? And then I have a follow-up.

So yes, it's been both energy and food that have not engaged further out on the curve. So really both, I think, with some of the uncertainty. And then if you kind of zoom out and think about the average curves for '26 on soy across the Bunge footprint, they're definitely up versus prior forecast. And of course, the U.S. has been the big driver there from an overall. So as that plays out, that's one of the things that definitely could get better as we see those inverted curves kind of work their way out a quarter or a month at a time.

And then when you look at softseed, the '26 kind of average curves for our footprint, again, up versus prior forecast, and that's driven really by North America canola. Some of that's on the RVO clarity and some of that's on ample seed supply. And then I mentioned a little bit earlier, of course, Europe and Black Sea, we're coming off a couple of years of small sun crops. So those margins will be pressured until we get to new crop, but that's an area where you can see margins get better if we get a good sun crop we're hoping.

Yes. Maybe, Heather, just worth adding is there is a little bit lack of liquidity going forward, but probably the one area we've seen them get a little bit further ahead is on the oil leg, given the price dynamics. But obviously, for us, we don't lock in the margin until we have all 3 legs priced. And so customers certainly are looking forward. But again, too, it's hard to -- I think for some of them hard to gauge where prices are going to end up. So still a bit dynamic.

Okay. And then I just wanted to talk about the U.S. strength. I mean oil has obviously helped, but recently, it's been driven a lot by meal. And just wondering if you could give us your view of what is primarily driving that? I mean there's been these talks about the traits in Argentine meal and that's been rejected at all. But just wondering if you could walk through the primary drivers and when you expect or do you expect that strength to moderate?

Well, I think the meal demand globally continues to surprise in a good way to the upside here kind of month after month, and that really seems to be driven with the meat economics, right, the profitability in the meat sector and the consumer favoring a lot of animal protein, which is supporting. And we know the animal feed, they love to feed soybean meal. It's been competitive. And it feels like that's good momentum to continue to move through. And then, of course, beef prices remain high, and that's also been supportive when the consumer is eating protein that pork and poultry are very, very competitive.

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

I wanted to start maybe by revisiting the conversation about the South America operating environment, particularly on the crush side. You talked a little bit about Argentina in the first quarter, but just more broadly between Brazil and Argentina, kind of where do things stand today in terms of the curves? How are you expecting that to evolve? There's obviously a lot of visibility into the U.S. curves that we're able to see, but just curious how you're thinking about that.

Yes. Those curves are both inverted as well and not as much visibility in those markets as we see in the U.S. Those farmers did both in Argentina and Brazil, sell into the flat price rally there in Q1. That slowed down here a little bit in Q2. But you've also had good bean crops there and the expectation is there'll be another good bean crop behind that. So from an overall environment, that's setting up well.

Okay. And then from -- I wanted to ask about share repurchases as well. And I know -- I believe at least you guys have only committed to -- for this year, the remaining Viterra portion of the buyback. But as we think about the operating environment continuing to get better, the earnings environment, cash generation. I guess how should we think relative to kind of what you guys outlined at the Investor Day, the pace of the share repurchase opportunity ramping from here or beyond this year?

You bet, Andrew. This is John. So I think we're going to certainly watch how things progress. We do expect to finish the $250 million here before the end of the year. And as you know, we've laid out a new framework as part of Investor Day on how we think about capital allocation. And one of those, of course, is allocating more closer to 50% of our discretionary cash flow to return to shareholders.

When we look at that and we overlay that for the balance of '26, we've got a fair amount of capital commitment yet to do this year, which really ultimately, we expect to use up largely any discretionary cash flow we have between dividends, our current buyback program expectations and the CapEx commitment we have should largely use that up. Now if things continue to improve, there's only one other thing we'll be looking at, and that is that our leverage ratio is a little elevated with Moody's right now versus where we want to be by the end of the year. So we'll be monitoring that as well. But certainly, in that whole mix, share buyback and if we have an opportunity to pull some of that head into '26, we'll certainly look at it.

The next question comes from Steven Haynes with Morgan Stanley.

Maybe just a higher level on some of the potential like shifts in global acreage. Can you maybe give us some guideposts around, I guess, a, what maybe the range could be on those shifts? And then also like if any of those potential outcomes might be materially better or worse for your new larger combined footprint?

Yes. If we look at the current year, it kind of seems like fertilizer was in place, planning intentions were in place. There may have been a slight shift we'll see with a few more soy versus corn acres here in the U.S. I mean weather has been good. Things are off to a good start. But we don't think it will be a big shift to just where the shock started to happen on price that stocks were in place.

I think where you want to watch it as we go later into the year, really, if this is sustained around availability and price on fertilizer is probably South America, Brazil in the next cycle and then U.S. in early '27. So I think that's yet to be played out. And then the other would be if we see the El Nino, which a higher percentage of some possible El Nino effect, which then could start to have the markets doing some work and sending some signals about which crops the farmer should be planting. But that's yet to be played out later in the year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Matthew Blair with TPH.

Great. Congrats on the strong results. It looks like you're -- when looking at your net leverage calcs, the RMI factor is now at 70% this quarter versus 50% last quarter. Could you talk about what gives you the confidence to push that assumption up?

Yes, that should be the same as last quarter. I think we adjusted it up from pre-close. So when we closed on Viterra, we had substantially more RMI in their inventory, and they actually with the rating agencies had a higher RMI credit than we did. And so our blended rate overall went up. Now it varies by rating agency and how they look at it. And so we just use kind of a rule of thumb of 70% for purposes of understanding the trend in our leverage. But certainly, each rating agency has their own policy and their own formula that we work with. But we continue to -- that's obviously a big part of our balance sheet. And as you can see, at the end of Q1, it was pretty significant and actually exceeded our debt level.

Sounds good. And then could I just circle back to the implied Q2 EPS guidance? It looks like it's roughly flat quarter-over-quarter despite just better board margins. You have the RVO in hand that didn't come in until the end of Q1. You highlighted some of the headwinds from things like higher tax, higher interest. But are there any other moving parts? And I guess, should we think of this implied Q2 guidance as somewhat conservative? Or is there anything else going on there?

Yes. I think if you look at quarter-over-quarter, yes, you pointed out a couple of the key things where we're going to expect quite a bit higher interest level in Q2 and higher tax rate. And really, everything else is largely in line or higher with the exception of tropicals, we expect to be a little more challenging in Q2. And some of that's uncertainty Greg talked about around CBE on cocoa butter palm prices, some of the potential tariff impact. And we do expect higher corporate expense in the next quarter as well versus Q1, which is historically a little bit low on the performance-based incentive side.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over for any closing remarks.

Thank you. I'd like to thank you all for joining us today. I'd also like to thank the team for their continued execution, the focus on our customers and the ability to really manage the optionality and the agility of this global footprint and capabilities that we've got. So I look forward to speaking with you again. Have a great week.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Please welcome Vice President, Investor Relations, Mark Haden.

Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Bunge's Investor Day. We're pleased to have you with us I'm Mark Haden, Head of Investor Relations for Bunge. Before I introduce our first presenter, I'd like to cover a few brief but important items. Today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current views regarding future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We encourage you to review the detailed discussion of these risk factors in our reports filed with the SEC.

Second, a brief safety and orientation reminder. In the event of emergency, please follow the posted exit signage here and then in the rear of the room and the instructions of on-site staff. Let me now walk you through today's agenda. Greg Heckman, our Chief Executive Officer, will begin with a company overview and strategy update. Julio Garros, our COO, will then discuss our operations and value chains. And next, Pierre Mauger, Bunge's Chief Transformation Officer, will provide an update on our corporate transformation initiatives. We will then take a 15-minute break. Following the break, John Neppl, our CFO, will deliver a financial update, including an overview of our mid-cycle baseline and capital allocation priorities. Greg will then return to close out the prepared remarks.

After the presentations, our executive leadership team will join us on stage for a Q&A session. There will be plenty of time. Immediately following the Q&A, we invite you to stay for a light lunch [indiscernible] food prepared with Bunge products, along with a company experience where you can take a self-guided tour and learn more about our company and capabilities. And with that, we're ready to begin.

[Presentation]

Please welcome Chief Executive Officer, Greg Heckman.

Welcome, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. So it's an exciting point in Bunge's history and we're excited to share it with you. So we've come a long way since 2019, and we'd be [indiscernible] Bunge into a more agile, disciplined and resilient company. Our strategy is clear: strengthen the core, expand our reach and deliver differentiated solutions to our customers, farmers and consumers of feed, food and fuel. Everything we do is grounded in disciplined capital allocation, strong risk management and a relentless focus on execution.

So I want to start today by reiterating why we're so excited and why you should be as well about what Bunge's headed. There are many reasons to invest in Bunge. We've distilled them down into 6 core points on why we believe Bunge is so compelling. This is and will always be an essential industry, and we possess attractive near- and long-term demand fundamentals. Bunge has an irreplaceable footprint with our leading global pure-play network and infrastructure. And we operate a unique value chain model, which positions us to capture margin throughout the cycle. And we are providing increasingly differentiated solutions for our customers. And those are farmers and those customers in the industry serving the consumers of feed, food and fuel. And the Viterra combination and our project pipeline are at key stages as we enter our earnings accretion window.

And we generate significant cash flow through the cycle, remaining committed to returning capital to our shareholders. And importantly, we're executing a proven playbook. We've done this before. We're utilizing the experience and capabilities that we've developed and we own. Our Gold team operates in over 50 countries, and we possess the talent, the footprint and capabilities to support, improve and help advance the entire industry. We're diversified across geographies, and that includes all the key producing regions in all the key crops. And our extensive origination, processing, storage and distribution and logistics infrastructure enables us to reliably and efficiently connect supply and demand worldwide.

So let me give you a little context or perspective. Bunge supplies enough oil seeds and grains, to provide every single person on the planet with 1 pound per week. Let me say it again, we could supply every person on the planet with 1 pound per week. And that's a population that is projected to grow over 0.5 billion people in the next decade. So we're an essential business, both for today's capabilities and those that will be needed for the world's future growth. So with that in mind, it's important to put the future in context of where we've been over the longer term and the work that we've done to transform our business over the last 7 years.

So taking a big step back in our over 200-year history shows Bunge's resilience and adaptability. Bunge began as a European-based trading house. And next, we built a strong presence in South America. And by the late '90s, we've become a global multi-segment agribusiness with a focus on oilseeds and grains. The 2001 was a key milestone. So 25 years ago, this private company that has been private for 180 years IPO-ed. So in 2019, that's when we really sharpened our focus, and we began the transformation of the Bunge you see today. So similar to Bunge, Viterra also has a long rich history in this industry with roots going all the way back to 1920 in Canada. And over the next 100 years, built themselves into a leading global grain merchant. So this combination of Viterra in Bunge makes us into the premier global agribusiness company.

So let's zoom in a bit. On the work that we've done over the last 7 years, since 2019, we reviewed and continually challenged and improved our org structure, in our portfolio as we continue to transform Bunge. This work has allowed us to involve into premier modern agribusiness solutions company. And that's built for the realities and the complexities as well as the opportunities of the 21st century. We've moved from a siloed structure to an integrated global network and that allows us to operate as one company. And we built and deployed world-class and best-in-class risk management function with incredible capabilities and we've driven that culture deep. We've identified and placed top talent in the roles of highest best use. We've exited low returning and nonstrategic assets and we've reinvested those proceeds where we have the right to win. And we've executed a mix of transformative M&A, along with organic investments and they're all focused on strengthening our core capabilities.

So our transformation has resulted in stronger cash generation through the cycle. Ratings upgrades from all 3 agencies and over $5 billion returned to shareholders. And we're driven by a culture of continuous improvement, and that's reflected in the changes that we made to date and those that you're going to hear about that are planned in our vision of the future. So in 2019, we've replaced our fragmented regional model with our global value chain model and that enhanced our ability to act at One Bunge and allowed us to get focused externally and serving our customers at both ends of the value chain and that's farmers and the consumers of food, feed and fuel.

And internally, that allowed us to act as One Bunge. And that allowed us to ensure alignment with all of our stakeholders. Now that structure is underpinned by our disciplined and independent risk management function, which maximizes the earnings power of our assets and our entire network. Julio and Pierre are going to share more on some of the key advantages of our value chain model a little bit later. So our risk management is embedded in everything we do, and it's a critical part of our DNA. It ensures a collaborative, no-surprises culture of transparency and accountability. It's an independent function.

The Chief Risk Officer reports directly to me and is appeared to the top commercial people. And the risk team is operating a centrally and coordinated market and credit risk functions as those 2 things work hand in hand. And this framework is reinforced through clear values and behaviors of accountability, transparency, communication and partnership. And that enables proactive and timely decision-making which reduces surprises and allows for optimal outcomes for earnings power of our business and always through the lens of the environment that we're operating in. And that disciplined approach protects the earnings power of our assets, but it also positions us to capture opportunities, and that's when and as the market environment provides them.

Safety. Absolutely nonnegotiable top priority for Bunge. It is everyone at Bunge's job. It's our responsibility to ensure that we get every employee home safe at the end of the day the same way they came to work. And we all know that a safe company is a more efficient and a more productive company. We've driven reductions in our lost time injuries with life altering potential since 2019. And our continuous operational improvement has reduced our unscheduled downtime, improved our machine availability across our processing network. We've also cut energy consumption per ton processed and that means both cost savings and sustainability gains. And this all results in a safer environment for our team, stronger margins and more reliable customer service. So we've taken decisive actions to streamline our portfolio team often hears me say our job is not to be a collector of assets, it's to be a disciplined allocator of capital.

And since 2019, that's allowed us to unlock over $4 billion through portfolio optimization, and that's through divestitures of noncore underperforming or nonstrategic assets. And this disciplined portfolio management, it sharpened our strategic focus. The strength in our returns and generated significant cash proceeds to support our reinvestment, our balance sheet strength and our shareholder value creation. So these changes most importantly, directly benefited shareholders because we generated significant cash flow, which we deployed in a disciplined manner, funding both our organic growth and our targeted bolt-on M&A. And we also returned a significant amount of that capital to shareholders, all while strengthening the balance sheet through debt repayment and we also funded the Viterra acquisition.

So this combination of transformation and disciplined capital returns positions us to deliver sustainable value through the cycle. Our combination with Viterra, which we just closed in July of 2025, accelerates every priority of the Bunge strategy. It strengthened our position across all customers both farmers and those industries serving the consumers of feed, food and fuel and it diversifies us in 3 critical ways: Geographically, across origin processing and distribution, and crops. And this mitigates risk because it adds more balance to our oilseed processing footprint, and that's both in soy processing and softseeds, and it's positioned us to better serve customers, both farmers and consumers with integrated solutions. And a broader network means more optionality and more capabilities, and that allows us to provide better risk management. And not just for Bunge, but for all of our customers.

It allows us to deliver durable synergies in the areas of logistics, processing and merchandising. And most importantly, it makes us even better positioned to serve our customers globally, which all leads us to where we are today. Our purpose unchanged, connect farmers to consumers to deliver essential food, feed and fuel to the world. This is absolutely a mission-critical business and a mission-critical industry. It's vitally important as demand for goods and services grows, not just in volume, but continues to grow in complexity. But our vision has expanded. We seek to be the premier agribusiness solutions company, built for the 21st century. We have the talent and we have the global infrastructure network to deliver our vision. And that's all supported by Bunge's core values.

We're one team. We lead the way, and we always do what's right. This entry is and always will be a people business. And I love that about it. I think this is an industry where the people can make a bigger delta in the performance of a company than any other industry. And I think our success reflects our talented dedicated and incredibly passionate workforce at 34,000 people. And we've got a deep and experienced leadership team with just a small group here on this slide with over 180 years in the industry. And most importantly, this team has the proven ability to execute.

Culture. Culture matters. It attracts and develops the best talent in the industry. What does that mean? That means people who want to win, people who want to work collaboratively and people who want to deliver results again and again. And I am absolutely confident that we've got the right team in place to navigate the complexities and recognize the opportunities which will drive our success. I also believe that we've got the best board in this industry or maybe any industry. And that matters. You want the right backgrounds in the boardroom, whether it's governance, operations or strategy, and we have that. We've got a deep and diverse commercial and technically experienced board that's worked across a number of industries, a number of geographies. We have multiple nationalities and they live different places around the world.

It's a real team between our Board and leadership team. And we operate in an industry that is deeply connected to the environment, making sustainability critical to our mission. And it's not something we just do. It's part of who we are at Bunge. It's embedded in our strategy. It's embedded in our operations and as part of every investment decision that we make. And why? Because it drives value. It drives value for all stakeholders. So our 3 core pillars: action on climate, responsible supply chains and accountability, which means commitment to science-based decarbonization targets non deforestation and human rights as well as regenerative agriculture, renewable fuels and responsible farming. And we've got important linkage of our compensation to our sustainability metrics. And we measure the impact across our value chains, reporting our progress with transparency and accountability. And our sustainability performance dashboard tracks our progress against our long-term commitments.

In 2024, Bunge was the first to achieve 100% soy traceability and monitoring of our direct and indirect soy purchases in the priority regions of Brazil cerrado biome. We're really proud of that and that was a 10-year effort. That's commitment. And our preliminary 2025 performance. We're showing almost a 21% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions versus our 2020 baseline. And we're on track to meet our 2030 targets. We'll publish our 2026 Global Sustainability Report in June. And when you think about the Bunge Viterra combined platform, that's going to extend our sustainability leadership across an even broader global footprint, helping us drive growth and long-term value creation which brings me back to what makes Bunge such compelling near and long-term investment.

Let's talk about some proof points behind these fundamental strengths. And then Julio, Pierre and John will go into even more detail. So we're connecting supply and demand, and that's essential of Bunge. And it puts us at the center of those global economics. Our business is structurally supported by long-term macro trends and particularly global population growth and the rapid expansion of the global middle class. And both of these are driving rising agricultural trade volumes across our key commodities. The growth is concentrated primarily in regions that are unable to produce enough food, and that's due to constraints in water or agrarian land. And these secular growth drivers, there's sustained long duration demand growth for grain and oilseed exports and imports.

And we are uniquely positioned to deliver due to our scale and our diversification to our global asset infrastructure and network and our integrated value chain operating model. And that provides us the ability to capture more than our share of these long-term growth trends. In addition to export, veg oil demand is expected to grow steadily, and that's going to be driven by food consumption from the expanding global population and the growing incomes and the expanded biofuel use for multiple supportive policies around the world. Also, palm oil production growth is expected to slow, and that's due to constrained acreage expansion as well as declining yields from aging trees. Palm is also experiencing growing domestic biofuel programs, which means growth in [indiscernible] demand, which flattens the export growth. And that results in soy and softseed oils being projected to contribute in the range of 50% of global veg oil production growth for the next decade.

And that is a significant shift where in the past, Palm has historically been the primary driver. So Bunge, unmatched physical assets, origination capabilities, along with our value chain operating model puts us in an advantaged position to serve this growing market. Our operating model is designed to outperform and outcompete. We've consistently delivered strong results, and that's been through a wide range of market conditions in the last few years. We've navigated trade disputes, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, biofuel and trade policy changes, all while continuing to protect and grow our earnings.

And why is that? That's because Bunge is built for complexity and change. The combination of our integrated platform, our disciplined risk management, our focus on operational excellence have allowed us to perform through the cycle. So looking ahead, if the next 5 years is equally as complex or even more complex. The addition of Viterra, it enhances our diversification, our capabilities and our scale, meaning that we're even better positioned to serve our customers' evolving needs. This map gives you a sense of our reach. We operate in over 50 countries, and that's connecting [indiscernible] to destinations that's connecting supply to demand. We're the global leader in soy, rapeseed, canola and sunseed processing. And we're the leading global grain merchant. Our footprint of assets with our capabilities and our proven ability to execute is a core competitive advantage for Bunge.

Our footprint is connected by our streamlined value chain model. And that allows us to integrate our origination, processing, refining, logistics and merchandising as a coordinated system, along with our global functions and our business operations that helps us optimize our flows and capture margins. And that enhances earnings, allowing us to outperform through the cycle. Our 4 segments and the value chains within them span and support all of our customers. And that's supported by our global functions and our business systems into one connected network. And that allows us to deliver differentiated solutions across markets and continue to improve earnings through the cycle.

So you're going to hear us talk more about farmers, food, feed and fuel customers today because these key customer industries drive our focus that guide both the solutions that we bring to market and the investments that we make for the future. Farmers are at the core of everything we do. And our direct origination is an important connection to help them improve yields manage risk and access the best markets. And we do that through Bunge's capabilities through a number of regional partnerships and a number of ag tech initiatives. In the food industry, you'll hear about we're expanding our footprint and capabilities in vegetable proteins, oils and fats. And that's to meet customer expectations so that they can meet the evolving needs of their consumers. And we do that in areas like technical services, innovation or helping them decarbonize their value chains with ways like regenerative agriculture.

And in the feed industry, Bunge is the largest global supplier of macro ingredients. And so we're partnering with our feed customer to help them enhance nutrition, efficiency and the reliability of their supply chains. And that's all while providing crucial price and logistical risk management. And in fuel, we're a leader in low-carbon intensity feedstocks. We're leveraging our global origination network and our partnerships. And a couple of great examples of that are our joint venture with Chevron and our joint venture with Repsol and we have relationships with many of our other fuel customers. And that allows us to help them meet their renewable energy demand as they work to put lower carbon intensity inputs into their value chains.

So overall, Bunge is working across value chains and customer industry segments to deliver tailored solutions, and we do that by engaging with our customers early and working strategically with them to help them deliver the desired outcomes. And Julio is going to talk more about how we're working with our customers to make them more successful. So we're earning a meaningful phase of our value creation from both the Viterra synergies and our organic CapEx investments. I'm pleased to announce that our cost synergies are running ahead of plan, and we've increased our expectations. We've also identified significant network and commercial synergies. You may remember that our teams couldn't work on that until the close of the transaction.

So that work is much, much more current but we're really excited about what we're finding. And our large multiyear CapEx projects are nearing completion, which means the EPS contributions will increase as they come online. This all results in us updating our EPS mid-cycle baseline to reflect these gains. So I'd like to remind you in 2022, we updated our mid-cycle EPS baseline from $7 to $8.50. And if you remember, our baseline, it's not a forecast, it's a model with a set of specific assumptions. It reflects normalized margin environment, where supply and demand are in balance. And so based on the environment and the speed of execution that can vary. So we are increasing our baseline to over $15 by 2030. And that's going to be driven by executing on our maturing project pipeline and the Viterra combination.

It will be about our disciplined capital deployment, and that will include significant share repurchases and an improving structural market environment. As you can see from the chart. Historically, our actual earnings versus a mid-cycle baseline vary in different parts of the cycle. And that's going to depend on the environment that we see going forward and the speed of our execution. But regardless of timing, we expect to see higher highs and higher lows throughout the cycle. So John is going to review in more detail on the drivers and assumptions around the baseline later.

So what's next? Julio is going to give you more on the footprint, our capabilities, our value chains and our areas of focus. Pierre is going to talk about our corporate transformation, what we've done to build a company position to outperform and outcompete. And John is going to give you more detail on the financial performance, the baseline model and our capital allocation. I'll then make a few closing remarks before having the team join me up here for Q&A. So again, we're so pleased to join us today. Enjoy.

[Presentation]

Please welcome Chief Operating Officer, Julio Garros.

Good morning. I'm Julio Garros. I am the [indiscernible] of the leadership team. I spent all of my career in South America. I've been 23 years in Bunge already. And I've been many years working in Brazil. with our local team, they are building our footprint and the capability that we are going to be talking during this presentation. Today, we're going to be talking about our 2 main competitive advantages: Our footprint and our unique operating model. Our footprint is an integrated combination of assets, grain elevators, terminal ports, crushing plants and refineries and that give us the global reach and the flexibility that we need to capture the benefit of the optionality.

This footprint has been completed very much after the combination with Viterra. Our unique operating model, as we call it, our value chain model is a combination of value chains per main commodities that integrate origination, processing, refining, shipping, transportation and distribution into one single business. So with this model, we have an end-to-end view that connects farmers to our customers. We are the only agribusiness company that has this specific business. We are not a business specific model. We are not an aggregation of business unit or regional product lines. We have a value chains. When we are talking about our operating model, we need to understand that this is being supported by our presence in origination and distribution. Any agribusiness company, global agribusiness company needs to have a relevance in origination.

After a combination with Viterra, we complete our presence in originations in every major production region in the world. We have the strongest origination presence in the planet. And I would like to highlight the situation in South America. Today, we are moving in South America more than 70 million tons of grains and oilseed. Our total volume in the world is more than 180 million tons of origination. So this is important because there is no other agribusiness company that has this presence with our farmers. Our value chain are aggregated by external segments so we have 4 segments. One is soy processing and refining, subsea processing and refining, tropic alloys and specialty ingredients. This is -- we renamed this segment recently because it represents better what we have been doing and what we are investing in.

And the fourth is grain merchandising and with milling. In soil processing and refining, Bunge is the largest crusher in the world. We are the largest and most efficient crusher. We cashed more than 60 million tons of soybeans. We have a network that is very well distributed between arises and destination. It's very well balanced and give us the optionality to serve our growers and our customers. Today, Bunge handles more than 20% of the soy processing in the world, excluding China. And if you include China, we handle 15%, 15% of the total capacity in the planet. Our processing plants are vertically integrated between origination, processing, refining and distributions. And we have the best optionality to serve our customers.

Post combination with Viterra and one of the nice reasons we did the combination with [indiscernible] because we brought home Renova plant. Renova plant is the largest crushing plant in the world. It's located in Argentina and has the capacity to process half Panamax per day. So every day, half Panamax is getting in and out in terms of crushing capacity in this complex. The layout and the technology of this plant is unbelievable. There is no other crushing plants that can compete with this. The industrial cost of this plan is 50% lower of any other crushing plant in the planet. [indiscernible]

So at some point, you are in Argentina, you should visit it. This is just amazing, I would say. And now this plant is connected to our processing network of Bunge, is located in a port terminal in Rosario, with a capacity of elevation of 14 million tons, 1-4 and is located in the waterway in the Parana River, so we have the capability not only to crush Argentine beans but also spins coming from Paraguay and from Brazil. And if you see that crops of soybeans are growing in the vision, then you may understand that Renova is very well positioned to have those benefits. But not only that, I mean, also, we like to have a very well-balanced network. So we have a very nice network of crushing plant that we call it destinations. And you do that only in specific countries or regions that you have the consumption of both products. And Vietnam is one of those places.

In Vietnam, the consumption of soybean meal and soybean oil is growing every year. The consumption of soybean meal is growing more than 5% per year. The consumption of soybean oil, more than 3% per year. So when you have those conditions, makes sense to invest in capacity in destination, and we did that. So we expanded our plant to 8,000 tonnes per day capacity. This is the largest crushing plant in Southeast Asia. So Bunge today has the largest crushing in the region that the consumption of soybean mill and soybean is growing the most -- is also located in a port terminal that we also expanded to 10 million tonnes. And this footprint is very well prepared to serve the growing demand.

By having this plant in Vietnam, we have more optionality to crush beans coming out of the U.S. or coming out of Brazil. And when we are talking about optionality, I would like to illustrate an example of how our model works, right? Anytime you have disruptions or a weather problem or a trade war. Our model and our footprint allows us to capture the benefit of the optionality to capture the benefit of the arbitrage. So this is a typical example that connects U.S. with China. As you know, 20%, 25% in any given year, in any normal year, we have a normal means, 20%, 25% of the group of the U.S. goes to China for crush. But recently, we have some kind of trade war and China decided to stop by bid from the U.S. By then, Bunge, we have to find an outlet for the crop of our American growers. So we decided to connect our origination book with our demand coming from our crushing in Europe.

So by connecting this new flow, we were able to continue flowing the origination coming out of the U.S. while connecting our remaining in Europe. But later in time, there was a trade agreement and China committed to buy material amount of bins or drop from the U.S. So when that happens, as you can imagine, the prices of the beans in the U.S. become more expensive. So Bang decided to divert back the origination book out of Europe and connect it back to China. And finally, we supply our demand from Europe from cheaper beans coming of Brazil. So this is a simple example of how when you have disruptions or when you have dislocations, our network and our model is able to switch the flows and extra margin from those operations while connecting our growers with our customers.

This is what we do. This is what we are the best at doing it. And you can imagine that what is happening right now in the world is also another opportunity for Bunge to continue doing more of this type of activities. The second segment, softseed processing and refining. Bunge is as well the largest and most efficient processor of sourcing in the world. This segment has been completed post combination with Viterra because we brought a very nice origination network of softseed [indiscernible] from Viterra, in Australia, in Canada and in Europe, so we connect the origination network from Viterra with our processing network in Canada and in Europe.

We handled today 20% of the canola and red seed that is produced in the planet, 20% of the canola is handled by Bunge today. Also, I would like to highlight that within this segment, we have our Sunflower network or some flower franchise. It's a combination of 2 networks, 1 in Argentina and another in Europe this network as well has been enhanced by the combination with Viterra. And by having these 2 type of networks combined, we are able to have a full supply of sunflower oil the entire year. As you know, the harvest of sunflower in Argentina happens in December, January, and the harvest of sunflower in Europe happened since June, Romania, July, August [indiscernible] the Eastern Europe.

Bunge is the only player with these 2 networks able to have some flower oil supply to interior. So if any food customers want to have a reliable source of some flower oil. They have to come with Bunge. This is what we are. This is what we are building. This is how we are going to be making profit going forward. All of our processing plants are co-located with refinery. So we have a refinery capacity of vegetable oils of more than 10 million tons, and this has been completed with a couple of acquisitions and investment in tropical low refining and fractionation. Combined, we have a capacity of 30 million tons of refining, and this is an extension of our value chain.

This is an extension of our agribusiness that we have, and we are close to our food customers. And this is part of the third segment, the new name segment, we call it tropical oils and specialty ingredients. The tropical oils business, as I said, is an extension of the value chain. With this business, we are closer to the food customers, and we are also investing. We are investing this refinery in Amsterdam. This refinery of topic alloys and fractionation will be the most efficient and sustainable refinery in the planet. In replacing 2 all refineries that we used to have in the region.

It's going to be ready in Q1 of '27. It's located in the Port of Amsterdam. And jointly with this, we are investing in a [indiscernible] of 100,000 tons of storage capacity to serve the refinery, but also to enhance our capability of treating vegetable oils in and out of Europe. Within this segment, we are making also a couple of nice investment in soy protein concentrates. As we know, the demand for protein fortification in foods is growing every day. everything today that we consume has protein, the [indiscernible] everything. It's not only about [indiscernible], everything needs protein, and this is what we are producing. So we saw this trend 2, 3 years ago, and we took a couple of good decisions.

One is to invest our protein plant in Morristown, Indiana, colocated to our crushing plant. This is going to be the largest soy protein concentrate plant in the world for food applications. We are commissioning this plan right now as we speak. We feel very good about it. We'll have the possibility to produce lower functional and texture soy protein concentrates. They expect and the quality that this plan is already producing. They are very good and customers, they are starting to feel very excited about that. On top of that, we just announced the closing of our -- the acquisition of the IFF business unit protein. This business also brought [indiscernible] SPC plants that are located in the U.S. We brought a large amount of customers and also a massive portfolio of applications and formulations.

When you combine these 2 investments, the Bunge size of this is we are becoming the largest producer of soy protein concentrate for food applications in the world. So we feel very good about this segment. The demand is there, and we are building the right capabilities. Our fourth segment and this is the backbone of the acquisition or the combination with Viterra, great merchandising and milling. When we put together post combination, both networks, we have or we combined the capacity of more than 100 million tons of handling of grades in the world. We operate in any major production region in the planet and we distribute the grains in all of the consumer regions in the world.

With this combination with Viterra, we also bought a cotton business, a very nice cost of business. with operations in Canada, Brazil -- sorry, U.S., Brazil and Australia. And we also brought a very high-value business of pulses with operations in Canada, in Australia and distribution in China and India. These 2 businesses are new for Bunge but they complete our portfolio. So now any time we're going to be doing business with a grower or we're going to be doing business with a customer, we have a more complete portfolio of products to offer. The grain trading business is a business that requires supply chain efficiency. So our network is supported by terminal ports that are strategically located in origins and in destination countries.

We have the capacity to move in our own terminal, more than 120 million tons. So we can -- we are able to do all of the trading using our own terminals without relying on third-party terminals, which is very good for this business and posed by [indiscernible], also we doubled the size of our ocean freight business. Today, we are handling more than 400 vessels at any given time in the world, more than 400 vessels. Bunge today has the capacity to handle 15% of the total agri business that is handled by C. We operate in any major agribusiness hub discharging unloaded in the world. We are the largest player. This is another example of how we do the arbitrage and the optionality in the grain business as well.

This is an example of barley. So the typical flow is Canada origination to China demand. China is a very restricted country in terms of barley demand because you cannot supply from any [indiscernible], so they have some restriction in what might be the right [indiscernible] to be supplied with Barley. So the typical flow is Canada forward to China, and we did that as many other players. But later in time, the Canada crop was hit by weather. So the weather affect the size and the quality of the barley in Canada. And Bunge was the only player able to switch Canada Origin to Ukraine. So we and supplying our Chinese customers with Barley coming out of Ukraine, and we keep the Canada Barley at higher prices locally.

Again, this is a typical flow and we have a disruption, and we were able to switch the flow and extract additional margin. Within this segment, we have our wind milling business. This is a specific value chain that connects our origination and trading activities in Argentina, with our wind mills in Brazil. This business has been increased by the combination of -- with the combination of Viterra. We increased the size of this business by 50% post merger. We feel very good about this business. We are finding that we have a lot of synergies by combining the commercial team and combining our mills and our report into one network, we're going to have a lot of opportunities to rationalized our commercial activities to optimize our storage capacity and to optimize our milling capacity.

We have a lot of synergies, opportunities in this value chain. We feel very good about it. The total market share that we have is 30%. So today, Bunge produces 30% of the flower that is consumed in Brazil. I'm talking about value creations and Greg already anticipated this. So after being working with a thin post combination more than 8 months and after defining the new commercial team and visiting all of the assets that we received from the deal. We feel very comfortable that the amount of synergies or value creation opportunity that we have in front of us in the industrial and in the commercial segment are much greater than what we originally anticipated.

We feel very good about it. We have a lot of good examples by, I don't know, connecting origination from Viterra with our processing plant. The leverage that we have in Europe to have better conditions in supply chains are massive. Before the deal Bunge was a buyer from third parties, FOB or soybean meal and soybean out of Argentina. We have -- we used to have more distribution capacity than origination and crushing capacity in Argentina and Viterra was a seller to third party of FOB [indiscernible] soybean oil.

Post combination, we are connecting those flows. We are internalizing those flows, and that will represent a lot of opportunities in terms of value creation. So now we are going to see a video, and we're going to explain how all of this footprint of assets and our operating model help us to connect our farmers with our customers.

[Presentation]

So now we can have an idea of how our operating model connects farmer with our customers. But we don't want to be just a transactional company. We want to be considered by them, by their partner of choice. So we are investing in solutions or initiatives that we're going to be talking in this section. In Farmer Solutions and as I said earlier, to have a presence in origination is key to any agribusiness company in the world. And this is what we have built. Today, Bunge post combination with Viterra, we touch more than 100,000 farmers globally. So we are the largest origination company. And one of the indicators that we like to invest is what we call direct origination.

Direct origination means to do businesses directly with the grower instead of using middle men's distributors or resellers. Direct origination is important because it's an indicator of profitability for 3 main reasons. One, the first touch margin or the origination margin is higher. The quality of the grains and the oilseed that you receive is much better for your processing activities and you have accessed firsthand to entail about farmer selling and crop conditions. So for us, direct origination is important. On average today, we are and we are planning to reach 65% in the coming years. If we're going to be talking about origination, we need to talk about Brazil.

As we know, the crops has been going year after year and continue growing -- that continue growing. Today, in Mato Grosso, which is a state in [indiscernible] they produce more soybeans than the entire Argentina. So this is what we're talking about when we said Brazil. The declaration of [indiscernible], the farmer that was in the video, give a clear example of what we talked about farmer solutions, right? So we have been doing business with Oscar for more than 40 years. He has been selling to us 100% of the production for the last 40 years, 100% of the production. And he's the larger grower in Brazil. And we are talking about Brazil for sure, he is the top 5 larger grower in the world.

And if you list the top 10 growers in Brazil or the top 20 growers in Brazil, they're going to tell you that they pick Bunge as a partner of choice for origination. That is what we do. So what we would like to communicate to you is that Bunge has the best footprint in Brazil. We operate in all of the corridors. We have the largest and better footprint of grain elevators, and we have today a capacity to originate more than 40 million tons. The country is growing and we'll continue expanding sustainably, sustainably. And there is no better player than banging positioned to capture the benefit of this. This is what we do. And again, direct originations and more volume, but also pharma solutions, right? We invest in initiatives to increase the stickiness with our grower to help them succeed and also, they help us to do to succeed as well. We have invested in Brazil.

As you can see, we have the pocket of blue dots we are investing in [indiscernible] programs, digital platforms, we distribute inputs, we do our financing. So we do many activities in Brazil to be closer to the growers to help the growers to commercialize their crops in the global markets. And we are doing many of these initiatives in the other regions, and we are going to continue investing. The more we do this, the more direct origination we want to have. The more direct origination, the more profitability that we're going to have at Bunge. Food Solutions, our network of mills and plant protein and refineries work together in order to give better services and high-value products to our food customers.

We operate in the B2B market mostly. We have some B2C good examples in Brazil and in Europe, but mostly, we are a B2B player. We serve the largest food customers globally and regionally. The way I see this business is the following. It's an extension of our value chain is an extension to go further downstream. And it's like taking a commodity with volatile prices, passing through our network and convert it into a more high value, more prices stable product to serve our food customers. We serve them in bakery, confectionery nutrition and dairy. So we have a very nice franchise here. We feel very good about this, and we are able to bring net additional emerging to Bunge.

Feed solutions. We heard the declaration of the CEO of CP Foods talking about building long-term partnerships. So feed solutions, the demand of macro ingredient is growing, again, year after year. regions like Asia and LatAm is where the consumption of this is growing the most. And Bunge today post combination with Viterra we become the largest supplier of macro ingredients. So we supply soymill, mid-pro feed ingredients to all of our fleet customers globally. This is a business that needs to have efficient supply chain. So we are investing on that. As we know, there is an increase in the supply of soybean meal in the U.S. as a result of the biofuel demand the processing capacity in the U.S. has been growing in the last 2, 3 years. So there is an increase of the supply of soybean meal.

So we decided to expand the capacity in our terminal ports, one in Pacific and the other in the Gulf in order to have more capabilities to handle this additional supply of soybean meal and to serve our clients' destinations, mainly in Asia and LatAm. This is a clear example of how we adapt our footprint when we have an opportunity to do more businesses. We serve the largest feed customers in the world. We give them solutions. We are helping to decarbonize their supply chain. So we are serving them with low CI or low carbon intensity soy, low CI meal, deforestation-free soys, and we are also giving them traceability and certification. All of this -- right now, it's been connected with technology.

Pierre will explain later. But basically, we are putting all of this traceability and certification in a token and we are service customers, not only with the macro ingredient, but also we are giving them the token with some of this information digitalized. This is what we are doing. This is what might be the next wave of how you put technology in order to give the information of traceability to our fleet customers.

Fuel Solutions. The demand from biofuels of oils, vegetable oils and waste oils growing every year as we know. The mandates are there. The [indiscernible]. And Bunge is the best company positioned to supply low carbon intensity feedstock to the fuel market. We made a couple of partnerships with Chevron and Repsol. We made 2 joint ventures, one in the U.S. with Chevron, the other in Spain with Repsol we together cash implant refineries in order to create the capabilities to produce more low CI feedstock to supply the value of fuel demand. We feel very good about the institution ventures. And we are going to continue growing in terms of how we create more low CI feedstock offers to the biofuel demand. One of the low CI feedstock that we are working with the disk oil companies is novel seats. Novel seats are a seat that have 2 characteristics: one, high oil content, secondly, has the possibility to be planted as a second crop or [indiscernible] inter crop.

These are the 2 conditions of [indiscernible]. We are developing these seeds with companies like Corteva, Bayer and [indiscernible] these seats, they're going to produce additional amount of oil to supply the biofuel demand without affecting the food supply. So this is perfect because they are not using extra land because they are second crop, and they are producing more oil per hectare. So this makes totally sense for the biofuel demand. we are investing on this. We are investing in the U.S. We are working with Corteva and with Chevron to develop winter canola. That program is working very, very well. And that program is going to be supplying our crushing plant in the Gulf that is going to be switchable between soybeans and canola, that plant, we are late are replicating it right now and will be the single largest line of canola crush in the world.

It's going to be ready in the second semester and will be dedicated to crush this winter canola coming from our oversea program. Also, we are working with Bayer in the U.S. and we are working with Grupo Don Mario to have Camelina sunflower and castor oil in South America. We feel very good about this program. We believe that this is the future might be a specific value chain in the future, we don't know, but the possibilities are really very, very excited. And with that, I guess we -- I was able to explain how the operating model and the footprint works in a way to connect farmers with our customers. We feel very good about what we are building. We feel very good about our capabilities, and we feel very good about what the market is showing or what the market is going to be bringing to us soon.

So we feel very good about this. We are very well positioned. And now Pierre will explain how we are going to do all this better with technology. Thank you very much. very accurate detailed

[Presentation]

Please welcome Chief Transformation Officer, Pierre Mauger.

Good morning, everyone, and great to be with you today. For over a decade, I've been working on and around our portfolio and strategy. And I have to say what we're sharing with you today is on a whole new level. It is without precedent in our industry, whether it's the asset network, the strategic clarity or the capabilities. Greg and Julio talked about how the value chain works commercially. How are we creating value for our customers. I will talk about what we're doing internally to make it all work. This section is about how we're positioning Bunge to systematically outperform the market. And when we say systematically, we mean based on how we're organized, based on our talent, our processes, our technology and our data. Being the largest and most global pure play of its kind, gives us a unique opportunity to build industry-specific capabilities that move the needle.

In our business, we buy and sell at market prices. And that means if we can consistently operate better than the rest of the industry, that increases our earnings in any market environment. So we're working to enhance our gross profit by optimizing our 200 million tonnes of flows through better logistics, higher processing yields and lower costs. and through better management of risk. We're also working to reduce our transaction and overhead costs through Viterra combinational synergies through global consolidation of our operational activities, and through process optimization. The foundation of all this is our operating model. And here's an example of what we can achieve because of how we set up.

In July, when we closed Viterra, we were running in parallel 2 of the world's largest seaborne agricultural trade operations, each handling in excess of 60 million tonnes a year from origins to destinations all over the world. In each case, that's enough to feed several countries. We have 2 sets of legal entities, 2 processes, 2 systems, 2 teams. In less than 6 months, we've been able to move all the Viterra legacy flows on to the Bunge platform. We now have a single process, one system run by one team. This is a huge unlock. It gives us one face to the market, better controls, and it's enabling us to realize cost synergies. This has only been possible thanks to the scalability and the process discipline of our operating model. The value chain approach works because it is underpinned by our global functions and our global business operations.

Our functions now run fully globally and they're increasingly focused on their strategic roles of partnering with the business to drive value and focusing on excellence in critical capabilities. Most of the operational activities are handled by our global business operations group. We set this up almost 10 years ago. We have 2 core locations, one in India, one in Brazil, and the model is now mature. We're continually increasing the scope and the sophistication of activities that are covered. Over $50 million of our initial cost synergies with the Viterra combination come simply from moving activities into our Global Business Operations Group.

Now moving to industrial operations. Greg talked about our relentless focus on safety and on efficiency. We're now embarking on a new chapter in our industrial productivity journey. We are going to run our facilities based on standards. We made a huge effort to codify all the best practices across our leading footprint into what we call the Bunge production system. And this includes a demanding minimum level, Level 1, and we expect all of our facilities in time to operate at least at Level 1, and our most strategic assets to operate at Level 2 or 3. We already have 18 facilities at Level 1, and we're consistently seeing new site level safety and productivity records. Technology and data play an increasingly critical role in our drive to outperform. Our technology strategy is focused on 2 major business outcomes.

First, value chain optimization which is about using advanced analytics and AI to improve our most important commercial and operational decisions benefiting our gross profit. And second, we want to maintain an efficient transaction backbone so that we can deliver industry-leading costs. These 2 goals are deeply interconnected and reinforce each other through the Bunge data platform, which is how we aggregate our proprietary data in a curated easily scalable form. Every day, teams across Bunge make hundreds of decisions that impact the bottom line. So we've looked across the entire value chain to determine which activities can most benefit from advanced AI and analytics. This is about optimizing the daily commercial and operational decisions that our teams make. And I must say human supervision and control always remain in place.

This is about augmenting what our talented people can do. So here's some examples of what we've built. I will cover Brazil's supply chain and the risk system in later slides. So first, this is the second one, moving across. We've developed proprietary software to plan our seaborne flows. This is about defining the execution that best delivers the desired outcomes of our customers and maximize the utilization of our assets on both sides of the supply chain. For example, we can often achieve vessel turn times several days faster than market benchmarks. When you have 400 ships on the charter at any given time and 50 ports around the world, every improvement makes a huge difference.

In Industrial, we've developed a machine learning algorithm to optimize production settings. This utilizes data from over 1,000 sensors in a single crush plant. And we're seeing meaningful improvement in yield and throughput. For example, in our pilot facility, we've reduced oil losses in the mill by 14%. This has been implemented in 3 facilities, and we're now deploying it across the footprint. In businesses with some differentiation such as wheat milling and B2B oils, we've developed a price optimization tool. This is about delivering faster quotes to our customers, and it also improves our pricing recommendations for the sales teams. In wheat milling, for example, we've seen a consistent sales uplift of 1% to 2%.

Now I'll go into a couple of cases in a little bit more detail. In Brazil, we run a massive in and logistics operation. We run flows along 8 main export corridors from interior to ports, and we operate 9 domestic soybean processing facilities. We spent over BRL 10 billion per year on interior logistics in Brazil. So we developed the sales and operations planning optimizer to improve that supply chain. It is a model that incorporates over 1 million data points including all the known constraints in our network. It is a strong planning time from weeks to days and it enables our team to take better decisions for our customers and for the bottom line.

In risk management, we've built a proprietary system called Delta. This is our single global source of truth for all commodity, currency and credit exposures. It gives us accurate position data every day that can be searched instantly all the way down to the contract level. The transparency and analytics that this provides a fundamental. They're a key part of what enables us to take the appropriate amount of risk for our earnings power and for the environment we're in. This has been highly instrumental in the commercial integration of Viterra, for instance. And the key to this success is a dedicated team that is continuously improving the system and the processes around it. These advanced analytics use cases are not one-off wonders. They're part of a systematic approach to build digital capabilities. It is hard.

We have the Bunge data platform. This is how we aggregate the amounts of proprietary data that Bunge generates every day. We're moving from a collection of traditional databases to a single cloud-based data platform. And having data in a curated easily usable form like this, we can rapidly and efficiently scale new use cases even where that involves massive amounts of information and computational power. In association with this, we built a talented data science team, and we're implementing world-class data governance. We don't create technology, but these capabilities make Bunge a high-impact adopter of new technology, especially across our vast physical network. Bunge is a transaction machine. We run over 10,000 customer transactions per day.

These can be small and simple like selling a bagger flower to a bakery in Brazil or they can be large and complex like shipping a vessel loaded with over 50 million tonnes of commodities across oceans and country borders. Our goal is to execute each transaction reliably and at ever lower costs. Prior to Viterra, we had successfully implemented SAP across our global operations. This took time and money but it's been a huge enabler for what followed. And when we plan integration, we chose to take -- we chose not to take a technology-centric approach. We used a deeply cross-functional lens. We look to processes as well as systems. In each country, we define the quickest, lowest cost path to get both businesses on a single platform.

Now we already have a lot of businesses on the same platform, most of our key markets, and this consolidation will be largely complete by the end of 2026. So it's going very well. Looking to the future, beyond integration, we see an opportunity for a step change in productivity. We will be deploying teams that combine process expertise and technology know-how in order to optimize processes using both automation and design improvements. Alongside that, we're going to be taking a cost-efficient, low-risk approach to managing the life cycle of our traditional technology platforms. Increasingly, our focus is going to be on the next generation of technology, analytics and AI, where we see a much higher marginal return on investment that we can scale across our physical network.

Having an efficient transaction backbone is all about improving our ability to convert gross profit into earnings and cash flow. Here, you see the ratio between our SG&A costs and our baseline gross profit. It's a strong trajectory over many years, and the Vita integration helps us travel a step further down this path. Beyond integration, we see major opportunity in process excellence and automation. We have several years of sequential productivity improvements ahead of us.

Now moving to conclusion. When we announced Viterra, we indicated operational cost synergies of $250 million a year. Today, we have a clear path to deliver and exceed this level. which is why we included a higher amount in the earnings baseline that John will share a little bit later. So far, we've been progressing very well through combinational synergies, which is tackling the duplication across the 2 legacy organizations. In 2026 and 2027, the focus has moved to operations consolidation and cost reduction. This is about moving more activity into our global business operations group and reducing costs. And beyond the current horizon, we see significant upside from process optimization and automation.

The progress we've already achieved gives us confidence we will deliver. Our frontline leaders in the trenches are the very same people who drove the turnaround of Bunge. We have a talented and seasoned team with a passion for execution and producing results. All these efforts are positioning Bunge to deliver higher earnings in any environment by systematically outperforming the market. Thank you for your time and attention today.

So it's break time. Let's -- 15 minutes, if we could have everyone back in their seats at say [indiscernible] just because we have people on the webcast and we can kind of start promptly. So please enjoy some of the refreshments outside, and we'll see you back in about 15 minutes. Thank you.

[Break]

Please welcome Chief Financial Officer, John Neppl.

Good morning, everyone. I'm glad to be here. My name is John Neppl, I'm the CFO at Bunge. I joined the company 7 years ago. And at the time, I was fortunate enough to receive a call from Greg. It's been about 7 years ago today, in fact, are very close to today. Greg had taken over is acting CEO at Bunge, and he and I worked together for almost 20 years at that time. So we've been together, I think, 25 years of my 30-year career but he called me and said, hey, we've got something interesting here going and said, I think there's a real opportunity to join Bunge, and we could transform this company. And he took you through some of that earlier.

It's been an amazing run for 7 years for me personally. And I think for the company, we've been extremely pleased with the progress of the team. It's been exciting. It's been fun, and I think we have more fun ahead of us. So Greg walked you through that transformation. What we've done in the last 7 years, it's been amazing. And then Julio talked about our unique operating model, our value chains, our segments and in our assets. So that really is the core of the company. And then who -- and then Pierre talked about technology and how we're going to leverage that going forward, how we're going to make ourselves more efficient, how we're going to integrate Viterra. That's all been extremely exciting as well.

What I'm going to do now is boil that down to what you all really want to know about is the numbers, right? So with that, I want to start with foundationally how do we think about ourselves going forward from a financial perspective. So number one is we are going to be generating strong cash flow going forward. We're very comfortable with that especially through the cycle. There's going to be ups and downs. It's not going to be a straight line. we're above mid-cycle, below mid-cycle, but we like the trends, but we are going to be generating a lot of cash.

Secondly, and like we have focused on for the last 7 years, we won a very strong balance sheet. We think it's important to remain competitive, gives us the flexibility we need to operate in any environment. So that's going to be a foundation. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. We really are entering a period of strong earnings for the company. Greg talked about that. We've got our -- what we call our mega projects all coming to completion in the back half of '26, first half of '27, and as well, we've got a lot of opportunity ahead of us in terms of Viterra integration. Those are going to yield earnings improvement. And then on top of that, we're going to have a disciplined capital allocation strategy, which is going to include a more targeted approach to shareholder returns.

I want to talk a second about our capital allocation strategy. So on the left-hand side of this chart, you'll see we start with discretionary cash flow, which is really adjusted funds from operations less our sustainable CapEx, which is our maintenance environmental health and safety. That's the money we spend to keep our machine running efficiently and effectively. That discretionary cash flow, first thing we want to do is continue, as I mentioned earlier, maintain a strong balance sheet. We've got a targeted credit rating between 2 and 2.5x. It's going to depend on what part of the environment we're in, if we see an opportunity. But largely, we want to stay within that a very solid investment-grade rating target.

Once we establish that, which we feel like in the long run, that should be very easy to attain, we're going to focus on returning to shareholders. First is dividends, and we're going to continue to maintain a strong and competitive dividend policy. What's changing a little bit is when we think about total return to shareholders, we want to allocate 50% of our discretionary cash flow to return to shareholders between dividends and share repurchases. And so I'll quantify that in a few minutes, but we want to get more targeted and more systematic about shareholder returns through share buybacks.

Now that will again similar to the environment will move up and down year-to-year depending on cash flow. But over the cycle, that's what we want to target. And then finally, we will continue to invest in growth. But what we're going to change a little bit is our strategy of -- we've done the big greenfield projects. We've done the Viterra transaction. We want to focus on really absorbing those and optimizing those large projects. But going forward, we still recognize we want to invest some amount of money in growth. I'm going to walk you through this from left to right. There's a lot of numbers on this page. But ultimately, what I want to do is explain how do we get from where we are today to that $15 baseline that you probably saw in the press release this morning.

So if I start with our earnings today, this is the midpoint of our current forecast of $7.50 to $8 that we announced last quarter on our earnings call. So I'm starting with that, it's midpoint. And we've been in an environment where we are below mid-cycle. I think everyone agree would agree 2025 was a bit of a tough environment. And I think as we started '26, things are starting to move the right direction, but we're still what we below believe is below baseline. So if we look at history, and I'll talk in a minute or 2 about the assumptions, but we think there's about $2 a share to get us back to mid-cycle. So if we get to a mid-cycle environment, we think that's going to mean based on the platform we're running today, that's worth about $2 a share at a little over $2.

On top of that, we've got our in-flight projects. So what I mean in flight, those are those large projects we talked about as well as a few smaller ones that we've got that are underway that should be to completion over the next couple of years, that's going to be worth about $1.30 when we get those completed and up and really running. So it takes time to commission and optimize those. But over the course between now and 2030, we get all those in-flight projects done, that's worth another $1.30 to us. And then there are the Viterra related items, and I'll talk about those first, the middle one, from a cost perspective. You heard Pierre talk about that. On the cost side, we think we announced $190 million included in our forecast for this year. And we've got another $0.50 a share worth of costs that we believe we're going to capture over the next couple of years, most of that in the next couple of that both Julio and Pierre talked a bit about.

And the important thing about those that $0.50 in that dollar, we're not going to necessarily stop there. I mean, those are what we believe today is very attainable. We feel very good about that, but we are going to constantly be challenging our cost structure or opportunities on the commercial side. And then finally, the other Viterra item here is we've got $250 million of stock yet to repurchase related to the Viterra transaction that we expect to complete this year. And then we also are going to have a small amount of debt repayment related to that. So that gets us to a $13, what we call run rate baseline and what that means essentially is if we take everything we have in process today, all the projects we're working on, the Viterra integration, the things that we've done up to this point, the decisions we've made, if we get all that executed in a mid-cycle baseline, we'll be operating at $13 a share.

What that doesn't account for is that future capital allocation into share buybacks and growth and productivity CapEx. So if we layer that on, during that time that we're completing all these other items, we're also going to be looking at that capital allocation, buying back stock, investing in additional growth we should be at $15 a share by the end of 2030. Now from an assumption standpoint, there's a lot of assumptions that go into a mid-cycle baseline, but I'm going to start with a few of the basics here. From a soy processing and refining perspective, that's a big driver because that's our biggest value chain in our biggest segment. We are assuming at a mid-cycle to have margins in the $45 to $47 range, and I'll show another slide on that in a second, but that's a big driver.

And we think where we are with biofuel policy going forward, the environment we see ahead of us, when we triangulate that with the history and we look at what the margins are going to need to be in the industry to incent capacity. We think that's a pretty reasonable forecast. On the refining side of soy, we're looking at an average refining margin, a little bit above our 5-year average, really driven by what we believe is going to be an improved environment in Brazil and Europe. On the softseed side, our assumption is the $75 to $77 range, which is kind of right in line with the 5-year average. So we're not expecting any improvement over what we've seen in the last 5 years on average. And then the refining side, refining premiums were assuming a little bit lower than average on the refining side.

So that kind of covers the 2 bigger segments. And then from a tropical [indiscernible] Specialty Ingredients perspective, we're assuming relatively flat forecast to what we have today as mid-cycle but it will be improved over time based on the in-flight projects. So a lot of the Morristown plant that we talked about and then the Amsterdam plant. Both of those are in that segment will over time help improve the performance of that segment. And then on the grain merchandising and milling side, we're assuming $800 million kind of a yearly mid-cycle base of earnings. And then on top of that, a lot of the synergies that we talked about that Julio talked about are going to be captured in that segment over time. And those were captured in that synergy bucket on the prior chart.

From a corporate and other standpoint, we're going to assume roughly in line with where we are today from what we've seen in mid-cycle, tax rate of 24% to 26%. You see interest there $550 million to $575 million. And then cost, we're assuming a lot of the cost inflation that we're going to see as you typically would see over a time cycle we're assuming a lot of that's going to be offset with our technology investment. So Peter talked a lot about investing in technology and that working to keep our costs down. And we believe we'll be able to offset that inflation through productivity. On the right-hand side, I kind of touched on the capital allocation, but we're going to assume about $300 million to $400 million a year in growth and productivity CapEx. And again, that's going to be more focused on efficiency and bolt-on kind of things and not greenfield.

And it may not -- it may be 300 some years, it may be less, it may be more. It depends on the opportunity. We're not going to be strict that we've got to spend $300 million to $400 million every year no matter what. It's got to be the right projects at the right time. And then I talked a lot about the capital return to shareholders already with the share buybacks. And during that time, as we progress forward and we allocate that, we are still going to have an extra capital available in the form of surplus debt capacity. So as we look at that capital allocation that I walked you through, still lowering our leverage over that time frame. And so as we target the 2x to 2.5x, that implies that we're going to have some surplus debt capacity as well by the time we get to 2030.

Here's just a quick look at the margin structure that I talked about on the prior page. The left-hand side is the story processing margins. And you can see right in line with our 5-year average and above what we had in our prior mid-cycle assumption. And then on the right-hand chart is our global softseeds look, and you can see the $76 just above -- just above our 5-year average and well above our current baseline. And those are really based on what we're seeing globally and what we believe the next 5 years is going to yield in terms of margin structure. At that $13 run rate mid-cycle baseline, we should be generating about $3.5 billion a year in adjusted funds from operations. And after we allocate that $800 million I talked about around sustaining CapEx, that's going to leave us $2.7 billion available for allocation to all those various buckets that I talked about in the prior slides.

First thing is dividend after maintenance CapEx. We have been committed to a competitive dividend over the last several years. Since 2020, we've increased our dividend on average about 7% a year. While we expect in 2026 to have a more modest increase in our dividend, we do expect and model going forward through 2030, roughly a mid-single-digit increase every year that obviously could change depending on the outlook and where we are in the cycle, but that's our assumption at this point. On the share buyback side, so historically, we've been I would say other than the Viterra related share repurchases, we have been largely opportunistic. So we bought a little here, bought a little there. We got very committed when we made the commitment relative to Viterra and we've completed $1.75 billion of that $2 billion commitment.

But going forward, we do expect to be more targeted in our process. And based on the modeling that we've done, in the mid-cycle baseline, we should be at about a $700 million a year amount available for share repurchase based on that 50% of discretionary cash flow model that I talked about. We've also spent $3 billion since 2022 on growth CapEx. A lot of that is related to the 4 large multiyear projects that we talked about. And then some other things we've added some port capacity. We've added an oils plant in India. We've done some other projects as well. We expanded in the P&W for soybean meal export. Julio talked about that project. So we've had a lot of projects in tow. And what we expect in 2026 is to see a fairly significant decrease, about $300 million decline in '26 in growth CapEx, really, as we finish those large multiyear projects.

And then you can see in '26, we have an uptick in maintenance really reflecting the addition of Viterra for a full year. So in '25, it was really just the back half of the year. In '26, we're going to have a full year. And as we go forward, we're seeing maintenance CapEx in the $700 million range. And then again, on the growth side, you can see significantly smaller relative to the past, that $300 million to $400 million range in growth CapEx. What we're going to do from a growth and productivity CapEx is really try to focus our investment, not so much in anything new, but enhancing what Julio talked about around our customers on both ends of the supply chain. So we want to invest in regenerative ag investments, things that can help us work with the farmer.

A lot of the partnerships we're doing with the seed companies, those sorts of things. we're going to invest some money there. And then downstream on the food, feed and fuel side, anything we do really of that $300 million to $400 million a year, we expect it to support all of these initiatives that Julio described. And we will continue to have targeted returns. So we want to see our projects at 1.7x our WACC is our kind of our base assumption that a project has to clear that level to be approved. And then obviously, we risk adjust those for depending on the region of the world we're in and which value chain is in will risk adjust those accordingly. We've also strengthened our balance sheet considerably over the last 5, 6 years. If you look at this chart, in 2021 through 2023 and really, if you go all the way back to 2019 we had significant retained cash flow on an annual basis, and that was really by design.

We -- when we came into the company, we didn't feel like we had to find somewhere to invest cash. So we took that time to really strengthen our balance sheet, and I'll talk about our credit rating in a second. But we really focused on retaining cash and strengthening our balance sheet and waiting for the right opportunities rather than looking for something that maybe wouldn't fit. When we got into the 2024, 2025 time frame, we started investing a lot of that capital relative -- I talked about those large CapEx projects. So we invested there. And then, of course, that really ultimately set us up for the Viterra transaction. We have the debt capacity. We had the balance sheet strength to step into that transformational project and really made a big difference, obviously.

And as we look forward and we think about, okay, what does that mean going forward? If we look at that mid-cycle run rate in $13 a share that should yield again the $3.5 billion of adjusted funds from operations. And when we look at our allocation between maintenance capital, growth capital, dividends and share buybacks, we believe that's going to leave us on average about $1 billion of extra capital not allocated to anything. And that's why we feel very good about the $15 because we're going to be generating even more capital than what we're allocating in the model. I talked about our focus on the balance sheet, and we've had credit rating upgrades twice from all 3 agencies since 2019. And most recently, we had one actually at the close of the transaction, which a lot of times is pretty unusual, but it reflects the fact that we had a really strong balance sheet going into the Viterra transaction.

And then when you look at the scale it brought the business risk profile, the diversification it really played well into our balance sheet strength. And so we feel very good about where we are from a credit rating standpoint, very key for us to remain competitive. And I'll talk in a minute as an example why that's really important. But we feel very good about where we are today. We are going to target in this range going forward, likely that A- equivalent across all 3 rating agencies probably is ultimately where we want to be. And then we'll decide if we need to go anywhere different from that. But we feel like at that level, we're going to be highly competitive, and we are today in terms of our cost of money is highly competitive in the industry.

When we closed on the Viterra transaction, we assumed a considerable amount of debt. Roughly $2 billion of that was acquisition financing. And then we assumed roughly $7 billion of debt with the Viterra transaction. Most of that debt that we assumed was supported by readily marketable inventory. And so when you look at that on a -- as you could see for us before close, we had substantially more RMI or readily marketable inventory that we even had debt would signal the fact that we can liquidate all of our inventory, pay off all our debt, we'd still have money left over. Very conservative balance sheet. With the Viterra transaction because a big part of the debt that we assumed was underpinned with readily marketable inventory, we still run a fairly conservative balance sheet from that perspective. And so today, in theory, we can liquidate all of our RMI and have virtually no debt left on the balance sheet. Now we're not going to do that, but that's very what you could do.

Why does RMI matter? For us, it is the lifeblood of the business. And when you think about it, what do we have to do as a company. We have to manage timing between farmers when farmers want to sell and when customers want to buy. We also have to manage getting stuff from where it's grown to where it's being consumed. All of that takes inventory, you have to run that through the machine. And so for us to run the merchandising business, the processing business that Julio talked about, it takes RMI to that. It is the fuel running through the engine. And when we think about RMI, these are not decisions that you're making, like when you want to build a plant, and we talked about the Morristown plant, for example, we made that decision a couple of years ago or 3 years ago to do it. That's a 10-, 20-, 30-year decision when you make -- when you build a plant.

RMI decisions are months, weeks, sometimes even days that we make that decision to invest in that RMI, but it is critical for us. And the reason why that when I talked about our credit rating being critical is because we have access to capital at credit spreads that are highly competitive in our industry. And the industry generally trades at average cost money. So to the extent we have an advantage over the average industry player, we have the ability to take advantage of transactions that others may not be able to do given our ability to access capital. So that's been, for us, we think -- and as we've seen our credit rating upgrades over the last few years, we've seen those credit spreads rest tighten significantly to where we are top tier in the industry.

Adjusted return on invested capital, this is a metric that we've used since I joined the company back in 2019 it gives a better -- in our view, a better indication of how you use RMI. So rather than a traditional return on invested capital, which treats RMI just like a plant asset just like any fixed asset, we look at it differently and the rating agencies do as well. They give us credit for RMI against our debt levels, but we also do a similar adjustment when we look at adjusted return on invested capital. And as we go forward, we are targeting at the $13 run rate baseline a number around 12.5% return annually, which we think is a pretty solid and competitive given the much larger scale of the company going forward. But importantly, you can see in that time frame from 2021 through to '23. When we were well above midsized environment, you can see our returns were obviously pretty impressive and pretty attractive.

And that just shows you the power of the machine. And we're not assuming an above mid-cycle environment going forward. But certainly, if we end up in an environment like that, you're going to see those returns substantially above the 12.5%. Cash return on equity or cash flow yield is another metric that we use and we talk about. And again, coincidentally, that view going forward is about 12.5% cash return on equity as we look at the model going forward under the $13 run rate mid-cycle baseline. However, again, you can see based on history, if we get in the right environment, we think that, that will improve considerably.

Finally, I just want to close on a few things here. One is our top 3 priorities are fairly simple at this point. First is we're going to commercialize those large multiyear projects that we talked about in the other in-flight projects. So again, worth about $1.30 of EPS for us. Secondly, we're going to focus -- continue to have [indiscernible] on Viterra integration and the cost synergy capture on both the cost synergy capture and the commercial synergy opportunity that we see out there that Julio mentioned.

And finally, we're going to continue to be focused on disciplined capital allocation through the cycle. Those 3 things together, which we largely control those 3 those are worth about $5 a share, a little over $5 a share for us. And that's why we're excited is a meaningful amount of that earnings increase that we're showing over the next 4 or 5 years is under our control. Then on top of that, if we get into a mid-cycle environment, I mentioned earlier that we think is worth a couple of dollars a share. If we start heading in that direction, which we think the market is starting to move that way, that we feel very good. That's why we feel very good about the $15 plus by the end of 2030.

Let me just close by saying this, and I think you heard it earlier is that we really believe we're positioned for higher highs when we're in above mid-cycle and higher lows in a below mid-cycle environment, we feel very good about that. And we've got hands down the best team in the industry and certainly the best team that I've ever worked with in my 30-year career. So makes me really excited and optimistic and can't wait to see where we go from here. But with that, thanks for your time.

I'm going to turn it back over to Greg for some final comments.

Thanks, Pierre. Thanks, Julio. I appreciate you sharing all that with everybody today. So all right, I just want to give you a few closing thoughts. So back to where we started. Why invest in Bunge? We're stronger, we're more agile and we're better positioned than at any point in our 200-year history. We've transformed our portfolio and we strengthened our operating model. And with the addition of Viterra we've created a Bunge with an unmatched footprint and a set of capabilities with the most talented and proven team in the industry to execute with.

All this is supported by our disciplined approach to growth and capital allocation. And all of this results in a Bunge, a business with durable earnings power in any environment. We're resilient. We can adapt quickly to whatever scenario, whether that's continued deglobalization that we're experiencing now or a return to the globalization that we enjoyed for over 2 decades. I want to give some context on what I mean when I say we're resilient and we can adapt some of the complex situations that we've been dealing with that affect the velocity and the volatility of prices and markets. We're always focused on keeping our people safe. But if you look at the Ukraine situation, it was an important part of our global network, important origination, important supply for the world and it was tucked into our global network.

And as the war broke out, we had to adjust supply chains, moving to safe ports, doing less by water, doing more by rail and truck. And we've continued to manage as things have changed over the years. And when that situation stabilizes, we'll change again on how Ukraine operates within our global network taking energy transition policies. Some of them have been on again, off again every country. And in some countries, every state has some of their own policy and they're developing at different paces. And our global team is sharing our knowledge and the knowledge that we gain with our partners to adapt to those different paces and where it makes sense for us. And in the Middle East, we've been serving the demand in the Middle East for decades.

The Gulf region is important. And so is that complexity increases, we've served that Middle East in times a piece, and we've served in the past in times of conflict. And again, we're adjusting to make sure that we get supply to demand. So regardless of whatever develops over the next few years, our diversified portfolio gives us the flexibility to allocate capital and assets where they're most needed and where they will ultimately result in returns that make the most sense for our shareholders. So you heard about our earnings baseline from John. It's just the starting point. We built a business with incredible capabilities, a business that provides real differentiated solutions for our customers at both ends of the value chain.

Our farmers and our consumers of feed, food and fuel. And we are advancing across everything we do. Per talked about technology. It's a great example, and we're going to continue to innovate and evolve. And as the biggest pure play, we're the partner of choice not only with our customers and our business partners, but with our technology providers, we're empowering our teams with data and AI tools. And while it's very early in that journey, we're already getting more out of our proprietary data, allowing us to make even better decisions to drive the efficiency of our hard assets and that's both our logistical assets and our processing assets. And that all allows us to better serve our customers, better manage our risk and capture more market opportunities.

This is just the beginning, and we're really excited about that fact. Bunge is built to outperform, and I am absolutely confident and our ability to create value for our customers, for our communities and for our shareholders. So thank you for joining. We appreciate your time, your interest and most of all, your continued support as we build the premier agribusiness solutions company for the 21st century. So thanks for joining us today. And now I'm going to turn it back over to Mark.

Thank you. So thank you, Greg. Julio, Pierre and John for sharing your insights with us this morning. And before we get to Q&A, we're just going to take a few minutes to set up the stage if you guys want to stand and stretch your legs, that's fine, but I ask that you kind of stay near your seats. We have about 40 minutes dedicated this period. You'll get the whole full executive team, if I could ask those. When you ask a question, raise your hand, please, we'll bring over a mic to answer your question. If you could just state your name and your company for the benefit of those on the webcast, and we'll get started shortly. Thank you.

Maybe before we get started real quick, if we could just those who weren't presenting today, if you can give a brief introduction and then we'll kick it off. .

Good morning. Kelly Sears, Chief Human Resources Officer. I've been with the company for a little over 3 years.

[indiscernible] the Chief Legal Officer. I've been with Bunge for 7 years and in the ag space for almost 30 years. Very happy to be here, even though if this goes really well, there will be no questions for me.

Robert Wegner, Chief Risk Officer, and I joined the company 7 years ago.

All right. Ready to go. We'll go front row. Tom.

Tom Palmer, JPMorgan. Maybe I'll just kick off asking on the $13 EPS outlook. I wanted to maybe clarify the time line if we were to kind of move into a normalized environment when that $13 might be possible because there are some projects, as you note, that are in flight that, I believe, kind of ramp both this year and over the course of 2027. So should we -- I know it may not be an exact time line, but should we think about maybe by the end of '27, that's the type of run rate if we were in a mid-cycle environment to anticipate and then that remaining $2 is kind of what issues over the next couple of years? Just any color on that.

Yes. Thanks, Tom. Yes, how I look at it, so if we make the assumption or in mid-cycle, I think we will have largely captured a good part of that value before 2030. But I think to get our large capital projects for large projects. Really, we think the run rate on those is going to be optimized in probably late '28, early '29. So we could see it a year early, maybe 1.5 years at that run rate, but I wouldn't say any earlier than that probably. .

[indiscernible], Barclays. I wanted to follow up. We've talked a lot about all the opportunities with Viterra, and there's been different building blocks in terms of incremental synergies. So it feels like if we take a look at the EPS impact, I guess, is pretax around about a $500 million synergy mark versus the $340 million that was announced back when you made the acquisition announcement. So wanted to understand within your framework of visibility, it feels like that's what you're seeing now. But what are the upside -- what is the upside potential? Where are upside risks? And where is potentially that incremental synergy that you've talked about it? Could you quantify that over the $340 million, what is what? .

Let me start and then Julio or John, if you want to join in. I think if you look at a couple of the global examples of the optionality and arbitrage that Julio gave you on a global basis. If you think about how complete now our network is between connecting Viterra's origination, it's kind of a vertical merger, right, with our processing and then both companies' distribution capabilities. that arbitrage and optionality that you saw on a global scale that happens on a continent scale if you look between Canada and the U.S. or Argentina and Brazil, and it happens on a country in a regional scale.

If you think about pockets of origination, feeding different processing plants, swinging between different ports. So it's the completeness and diversification of the origination and that's why it's so key to be in all key crops, all key origins and all key destinations. So at a high level, that is the mining of the opportunity out of the machine and why we were so excited to put this combination together.

In my mind, the more disruption that we face more opportunity to capture the optionality and things that is happening on and on and on. So that is one point. Another that we need to estimate better is how to use Renova crushing plant into our processing network wide. I mean we are bringing that master plant, right? That is going to be -- we are going to become more efficient right, and how this is going to play serving our customers. So that benefit is not yet clear how big it might be. We feel very good about that, but that is not there. And again, also internalization of flows, right? When you are putting together the 2 networks, right, you don't need to rely on third parties, right? You control your flow.

And that means a lot of extra margins in your volume. So that is a lot of -- and something that also we need to understand better [indiscernible] Pierre was explaining about the using of technology, right? We are moving 200 million tons per year, every year, 200 million tons any improvement in the performance of your plants or in the performance of your yields of 1% will represent a lot of money on a yearly basis.

And I think maybe just one other thing I'd add on, Ben, is that the commercial synergies that we identified, that dollar were specific initiatives that the team said we can do these things. what's really difficult are the intangibles or the ones that are really hard to measure. So all of a sudden, we're one voice in a market or we combined our freight book and Pierre talked about that. But what is that going to do in terms of our ability to perform better than everybody else in the freight market. Some of those things are really impossible to quantify, but they're out there. And they're intangible in a way, but they will be tangible, we think, in terms of creating value to the bottom line. It's just very hard to point to specifically that dollar got to her. And so I think the way we took the approach is let's talk about the things we kind of identify as initiatives, but we know there's more out there.

And there's probably a just 2 other points. When you think about the long-term growth in demand, we'll probably serve that primarily by making more yield on the same core, the same acre. And that means when there is a weather problem, you end up with that dislocation that we're able to help solve. The other, as you continue to grow volumes, there begin to be choke points at distribution points, storage points. And so that will be problems for us to solve, but also with the insight we have, it will be very clear where the best returns on investments as we debottleneck or do targeted M&A to improve our capabilities. So both of those are great long-term plays. .

We're going to Manav and then Heather. .

Manav Gupta, UBS. I apologize I'm the one asking about the RVO question, but somebody is going to ask it anyway. So have you heard anything? And the question I'm trying to understand is -- how important is that final number in trying to get to that mid-cycle margin? What role will that finalized RVO number plane you're getting there?

John, do you want to take that?

Yes, I can start with that. So like everybody else here, we're anxiously awaiting a final decision on RVO. We haven't heard anything counter to what we've been expecting. It's just timing is kind of driving us all crazy. But when we look at our mid-cycle, RVO is going to be an important part of that because we were assuming, particularly on the soy side to see a good improvement in margins. And that's going to be driven, though, by 2 things. One is U.S. RVO policy, which we think is critical for both soy and softseed frankly, because soft seed is going to be supported well. But we're also seeing improvement in biofuel policy in Brazil. And that also has given us some confidence in our forward look.

So -- and then, of course, you've got ongoing European development around biofuel policy as well. But this one singularly is probably the biggest one we're watching right now. But nonetheless, Brazil and where they're headed is important as well for us because we have such a big footprint down there. But we need it. We need it to get to the $13, but -- and I think we're confident it's going to be certainly better than it has been, and timing, we'll see.

Heather Jones, Heather Jones Research. So just going to your -- so on soy, you raised at nearly $10 a ton from your '22 level and nearly $20 a ton on the soft. How much of that is related to your RVO assumptions and all as opposed to just structural improvements you all have made and more favorable policy that's already in place in other areas of the world?

Yes, I would say it's probably -- I mean, when I look at that -- one of the things we did is we looked at our 5-year average, obviously, okay, where are we versus a 5-year average. And what do we see going forward? It's a little bit hard involved. But when you look going forward, you say what's it going to cost to incent. If demand increases, what kind of return is the market going to have to get to be able to build, justify new build or expansion of capacity. So we looked at what margin level would take to get -- provide an adequate return to the next investor.

But we did look at the -- what we believe the impact of RVO is a little bit of a science. But I think we felt like we landed on a margin structure that is reasonable and attainable based on what we expect the impact to be. And structurally, I think soft see globally is better than it was, and that's a big driver is a lot of that improvement on the soft seed side versus, say, 2022, a lot of that's Argentina, a lot of it's Europe. It's [indiscernible] sun seed side has been very good for us. So it's a lot of different factors to get there. But what we're doing is telling you what we believe that number is -- and so if it ends up better or worse than above or below that, we'll explain that. But we think those are based on all the factors, pretty reasonable assumptions.

So there has been a normalization in Argentina from a macro point of view in the last 2 years. reducing the export duties, you have more stability in how we are taking the decisions in those countries, and we have more than 30% of the crush capacity in that country. So everything indicates that the average gross margin per ton of Bunge will be higher because of the stability that is coming from Argentina. Argentina took the decision some flower 3 years ago to reduce the export tax and the crop went from [indiscernible] billion in 2 years meaning the potential there, the growers are there. So if that happens to corn or choose soy, we should have a nice benefit in crush margin sales overall. .

Matthew Blair from TPH. There's been some major geopolitical events over the past few weeks here in Iran. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about any impacts to your business, is this raising costs? Is it opening up trading opportunities? I think you mentioned you have 400 ships on the water. Is that being disrupted at all? Just anything on the RAN impacts to Bunge?

Yes. I'll start, and then I'll let you take it. Yes, unfortunately, as you've seen, we've gotten a lot of practice the last 7 years with things that were outside of our control. And Robert, I might have you talk a little bit as well. So we always talk about we control the things we can. And then we do a lot of stress testing and scenario analysis around the things that we can't control and what would be the possible scenarios and if certain things happen, what would we do?

So I think being proactive in thinking about how we then connect supply with demand under certain scenarios, helps us be ready. And then as we were talking about the physical footprint of our infrastructure, our network to be ready for that. And that's allowed us to then make those decisions on if you have to ship ports, if you have to slow down shipments, if you have to move to different modes of transportation. But what are you talking about?

The way I see that this situation, right, you have to separate the short term from the medium term, right? And right now, everybody are trying to understand the duration of the [indiscernible], right? I mean, there has been lack of energy in some places. So we have to adjust all of our logistics to continue serving our customers, right? I mean people need to eat, and we have to deliver those basic foods to them no matter what. So we are doing that. The logistics is being flexible enough, so we continue keeping the flow running.

Now in the medium term, what we are seeing right now, and let's see how this evolves is that at these prices, growers tend to sell more. So we are basically fulfilling all of our grain elevators in North America and in South America as we speak right now, which means that we are having more opportunities to increase what we call the first half margins and to do the quality improvement and so on. So medium term, we should be better and feel very good about what we're going to be executing.

And then Robert, you might talk a little bit about.

Yes. And then I would just add that in the short term, we start every day with a very detailed understanding of our exposures. We have our teams across credit, commercial, compliance, logistics, trade finance working together to find solutions, whether that's finding safe ports to discharge cargoes, whether it's finding acceptable payment channels, very active dialogue with all of our customers in the region on a daily basis. So really, the team is well positioned to find the right solutions.

Andrew?

Andrew Strazik from BMO. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the meal market. I think there's been concern over time about what happens with soybean meal prices as crush ramps and prices have been pretty resilient here recently. So how did you approach that? How do you think about that within the context of the 5-year framework? And what's within your control? What are you doing to drive demand for meal internally?

Okay. Let me start and I'll let you talk about the framework you talk commercially. But I don't remember we talked in the past, we were net deficit. We marketed way more meal than we produced. So one of the things about bringing Renova and the team together, the capabilities of our crushing process is we have that demand. You saw we made some of the investments here in North America and the gateways, both in the P&W as well as the center Gulf to be able to serve that. And then from an overall feed manufacturers love to use soybean meal, right? And I think the takeaway that we've been seeing, the demand continues to surprise everybody, and that is showing that, that growth, whether it's the growth in protein, animal protein, people eating more chicken, more pork, more beef, more turkey and/or that the overall growth as well as the growth in animal protein is driving that meal demand.

So I would like to complete with -- there are 2 important factors to understand. Firstly, the demand of soybean meal has been a positive surprise. So we have the additional supply, as we know, right? All of -- we know clearly the number of the additional processing capacity that we are investing on. But the demand is surprising us. So when you go to countries in Southeast Asia or even China, we are having higher demand than expected. I guess that is because at cheaper prices, the ratio of the formulation is changing in favor of soybean meal. So that is happening. Latin American countries, they are consuming more as well. So we feel very good about that.

What we need to do, and that is the second factor, is we have to remain competitive. We have to be the most competitive distributor of ingredient in the world. That's why we are doing the investment in the U.S. terminals. We are making another investment of terminals in Brazil and in destination countries as well. If we continue doing that way, it's going to be a very good thing to have this excess of soybean meal coming to the market because we are going to have the distribution capabilities.

I would just say maybe, Andrew, from a modeling standpoint, as we looked at the margin structure that we assumed going forward, we're contemplating -- there will be some floor on soybean meal. We don't know what exact dollar level that is where it prices into more and more applications. But with the offset on the oil side being strong, we feel comfortable that we've got the right forecast in there for margins.

Julio, I wanted to explore the Argentine comment more, the fact that you're seeing more stability going forward? Because historically, when Argentina has been weak, we've seen Europe and Brazil and the U.S. better. So if Argentina is more stable going forward, what does that mean for the other countries? And does it mean that this better margin environment accrues more to Bunge because of your Argentine crush capacity than maybe some of your peers without that capacity?

So the way I think that -- so in the past, it's right that when Argentina was suffering, let's put it that way, or they weren't crushing at full potential, the crush margins in destination was much better. But there was an additional change in the market that you have to consider, which is Brazil. Brazil in the last 2 years had 30 million tons of beans production, meaning that you will have the benefit for an Argentine running full capacity, let's put it that way, to supply the Indian market, Indonesia, whatever with meal and oil. And also, you're going to have cheaper beans coming out of Brazil to be crushed at destination in Europe. So you need to -- if you put those factors combined, I would say that it's a good thing to have a better Argentina from a macro point of view.

And your other point is correct as well that we were underrepresented in Argentina in the past. And with this combination, it gives us the global balance, including Argentina. So as Argentina improves, we will benefit there much more than we did in the past. And so we really like the global balance in our crushing footprint now.

Sal?

Salvator Tiano from Bank of America. I wanted to ask a couple of things. Number one, on AI, you mentioned that AI is helping, but there's always a human component and human control. So is there a point a few years out that you're working towards actually not needing that human component, whether it's on pricing or trade flows or how you run your plants?

And a little bit on the short term, everybody is still trying to figure out the synergy target. It seems based on your guidance that you have $150 million in synergies left from the original $340 million target, that $0.60 in EPS and you're guiding to $1.50 million. So is it fair to say that the synergy has been -- target has been raised by $0.90 or around mid $200 million?

Pierre, why don't you and then Robert talk a little bit about how we're using AI to enhance decision-making, but the human is still making the decision. And John, I'll let you take the synergy.

I think we all know AI is changing extremely fast, right? We see these models capable of doing things now that they couldn't do 3 months ago. So I'm probably not going to engage here in a prediction of ultimately where the technology can go. We're doing -- we're following it very closely. We're trying to adapt.

Our own experience with AI goes back actually a few years, and it's more around machine learning. So it's the live sort of high-impact use cases we have so far are more about building our own algorithms. So it's not the consumer Gen AI type of solution. It's much more data-driven to optimize production, to optimize logistics, some of the examples that I've showed.

We're looking closely at Gen AI and what that can do to drive automation. We see potential. Midterm, we see probably more potential around accelerating analytics, making those forms of analytics much quicker. Surprisingly, with AI, you could write a novel, but you can't pay an invoice. We're looking closely out there, and there's no company that's just magically automated a transaction process. And that's where that human element remains key.

Across all of it, though, what is super important is the data. So as this technology improves, the ticket to the big game is having your data in a form that is reliable, curated, controlled because you've all read, you have this notion that the AI can hallucinate, it can either get the wrong information or it can even make stuff up. So it's super important that we have our data in a very tight box. And as we deploy those tools, it's using the right information to answer our questions. It's using the right information to guide what are very important decisions that we make with that information.

So before Robert, sorry, just to complete, we have a couple of examples that we are implementing the algorithm in our crushing plants today. We have a crushing plant that is our lighthouse. We tried all of this technology that Pierre is talking about. And the algorithm is finding ways to do the extraction of the plant much better than what we used to do. And that are improving the yields of the plant by 0.5%, just the algorithm. So what I'm trying to say that this is not about...

And that was our best plant and our best [indiscernible]

Yes, it was already a very good plant, by the way. What I'm saying is this is not about reducing headcount in the plant. This is about improving the way you are processing your beans. So just imagine -- and as Pierre said, we have to collect the data, the data have to be clean. We have to build the algorithms in blah, blah, blah. But imagine if we extrapolate that benefit to a plant like Renova, what may happen. Sorry, Robert, you want to...

It's okay. And really, I would just add for risk management purposes, we still very much rely on human decision-makers. We are using systems like the Delta system, which Pierre described, which has tremendous amount of detailed information on exposures.

We use -- we are beginning to use AI in how we then distill the outcome of the analytics and make quicker inquiries to the data. So what maybe used to take us a couple of hours or even days to put together. With some of the latest tools, we are seeing a lot of productivity to get very quick answers, quick analytics back from the underlying systems and results that we generate. So that's where we see a lot of opportunity from the risk perspective.

I want to make sure I touch on the synergy question. So we had originally set out $250 million. We mentioned we have $190 million in our forecast for this year. So we're estimating total now really that $250 million were more like $350 million with that $0.50 of additional that we see that we're going to capture here going forward.

Then on the commercial side, that dollar is $250 million to $300 million. And again, those are specific targeted opportunities that the team has identified, but we believe there's more out there that is going to be really tough to pinpoint exactly. But we'll certainly communicate those as they become obvious.

And that includes the $90 million.

Yes. And that includes the $90 million, yes, in the commercial side.

Ken?

You don't fully know the RVO at this point. How much conservatism have you built into your expectations? And how much cushion do you have in terms of cost savings opportunities? Because it could be a pretty wide variance of the RVO. So I'm assuming, given your history, you guys tend to be on the conservative side. So I'm just trying to figure out if it doesn't go exactly your way, how much conservatism you have in there?

I'll start with saying guilty as charged, okay? One of the things that we like to do is make sure we deliver what we promised. And one of the things that you've heard us say today that we're excited about this combination is we've got more levers to pull to drive cost synergies, to drive commercial synergies, to solve problems for our customers by helping them get to market and solve some of the complexities, which we think will continue going forward. So there are a lot of ways to win and deal with things that turn out different than the assumptions. Now that being said...

Yes. Ken, I would -- it's kind of hard to characterize exactly. But I think the one thing we did is we didn't -- our model and our go-forward view of mid-cycle and how we look between now and 2030 wasn't done by a bunch of accountants in a dark little room. We got with the commercial teams globally and talked with each one of them. What are you seeing in your regions? How do we feel going forward about biofuel policy, other drivers in the business, the competitors, where do we see global demand and supply and demand factors.

And so it was -- we felt like really a bottoms-up sort of approach to this. It wasn't a top-down at all. So we -- and our teams are inherently -- to Greg's point, they're inherently conservative. I mean their mind is, I'll tell you what I think I can do. And so we feel good with that, that it considers what we have seen historically when times are good and when times are not so good, we factored in what's happening globally around production and demand, biofuel policy and lots of other places and the impact of things like palm policy in Indonesia, those sorts of things.

And so we feel good about where they are. I can't predict where they're exactly going to come in versus what we modeled, but we feel like it's a reasonable approach.

And I want to put a finer point on that, John, because you made a really important point about how we operate Bunge. Business is a team sport. all right? And the one thing that we've done since we started the transformation in 2019, if you think about it, right, we sold a lot of assets. We bought assets, we did deals. We changed the operating model. And during that, how were we able to accomplish all this?

Now I'm a pretty optimistic guy, and they'll tell you, I have kind of high expectations of our team. But what we were able to do, the capabilities we were able to build and the execution over the last few years, that's what gives us the confidence going forward. And as John said, it's because we get the team together, we run this organization very flat, enormous amounts of transparency and we figure out what makes sense and then we lock arms on it.

And then comes the accountability part. And that's where everybody is playing their role in this team sport of business and taking the pride. And our customers are at the center of it. Our employees are so passionate about what we're doing and the purpose of this company. I mean, Kellie, you've got to talk about the engagement scores that we got unbelievable and during this time of turmoil.

So I think it is the way that we run the company and the accountability that we have driven so deep and wide that allows us to deliver the way we do. Talk a little bit, I think it's worth mentioning.

Sure. So we started the cultural integration really after we signed the deal. So that was almost 2 years before we closed. And it was really important to understand the similarities and differences. We recently, after we closed, just did a combined survey or engagement survey, where we had 65% of our employees participating with an 85% score. This is a significant achievement for any company actually. And so we're really proud, given all the change we're going through those results. And it really positions us well to enable our strategy and deliver on the future.

Pooran, back row.

Pooran Sharma with Stephens. Just wanted to ask about the mid-cycle assumptions for the grain business. When I thought about this business before, you have merchandising opportunity, but with Viterra, now you have space income opportunity. So when I think about mid-cycle and $800 million, is this more of a space income opportunity? Or do you have more merchandising profits in there? Would just love to get a little bit more granularity on how to think about the moving pieces within grain at that $800 million?

I'd say the answer is yes, and I'll let these guys talk about it. And that's the beauty of what we've added, right? In the past, if the markets were tight and there was no storage revenue, we had the ability to benefit from that. But there were a number of areas like North America Canada, Australia and even Europe, where we didn't have the same benefit as a storage footprint that we got with Viterra. So now we've got that offset. When the storage income is there, we're able to clip those coupons, if you will, until the market calls on that supply and then it's back to the merchandising we had before.

Yes. I will give you an example. So as Bunge legacy, we used to operate in Australia, in western part of Australia and Viterra was very strong in the southern part of Australia. Now together, we have a perfect network to participate in the growth in Australia from a grains point of view. So that is a positive that we have to consider going forward. And the same with Canada, right? I mean the footprint that we are bringing with the combination of Viterra is unbelievable. It's something that we didn't have before. So we feel very good about that.

In the U.S. market, we are having the full network of grain elevators in the mid planes that will enhance not only our grain merchandising business, but also they carry our bean for processing. So there are a lot of extra synergies or positive from these combinations that you should consider in the model, in my opinion.

Yes. I would -- one of the things we did -- this is the part of the business that is the most difficult to forecast because every year in merchandising money is made a different way, different market structure, different S&Ds you could have a dislocation, a disruption. So it's very hard. So what we did is we looked at history over a 5-year period, and we said, okay, what has happened in that 5-year period? And there's always things puts and takes.

We have dislocation, we have this dynamic, we have this weather event. And we try to look across that and say, if we were to sort of account for every one of those different sort of market environments, some years, carries are really good and so grain storage is a very good thing and some years, carries aren't as good. And so we tried to look across kind of a 5-year history and put in what we thought was reasonable based on our historical results in our merchandising segment, along with Viterra's historical results. We spent a lot of time looking at their history and dissecting it, understanding what went well, what didn't. And that's where we came up with the number.

And it's -- that's one that we're going to continue to try to digest and understand going forward and figure out, is there a better way going forward to forecast it. That is where we see the most upside from a synergy standpoint will be in that segment because of -- obviously, that's where a lot of the value, we think, bringing the global merchandising together. But we feel like we've got a good rule of thumb in there at $800 million, and then we'll layer on synergies as those get realized and keep refining it over time. And maybe AI will help us get better at forecasting that, I don't know. But that one is a bit more challenging probably than the other segments.

Andrew?

You talked about all the work you've done to kind of reshape the portfolio. And I'm just curious on the margin, kind of where do you see opportunities to continue to evolve the portfolio? You talked about bolt-on M&A. And then I think there was $1 billion kind of not earmarked within the cash flow. How do you want us to think about that? And how did you incorporate that into the baseline?

Yes. Let me start and again and you guys can dive in. Look, one of the things that we're really excited about, right, is there are so many opportunities with bringing Viterra and Bunge together that are right in front of us, right? We have the ability to reach the full potential of our grain merchandising business, right? And whether it's a cost improvement or the optionality improves that we execute on with the volumes that are going through there, just there's an enormous amount of leverage in that.

Julio talked about, we couldn't, I think, have built a Morristown plant and made the acquisition of IFF at a better time. So either one would improve what the amount of opportunity we're able to get at with what we're seeing going on in protein demand, the fact that the timing of bringing them both together at the same time, fantastic. It will take time, but we're very excited about helping that part of our business reach its full potential. And a lot of the go-to-market is with some of those great brands that you know around the world that we're also selling specialty fats and oils too as well as we bring those specialty proteins in.

And then as we talked about the processing footprint, again, taking -- we've got the best or better practice somewhere on the globe happening in one of our facilities, whether it's grain handling, wheat milling, soy crushing, softseed crushing. And our industrial teams are benchmarking those KPIs and learning from one another. And so we'll continue to drive against that productivity across our asset infrastructure and network globally. That's ours to manage to try to get to the full potential at the culture.

So if you ask me, the priorities right now are executing what we are doing right now. So that is priority #1. We have to execute the model, capture the synergies. And so that is priority #1. Priority #2, digital. I mean those projects that Pierre was talking about, they are showing us that there is a lot of extra margin that can be captured. Again, as I said, we are moving 200 million tons end-to-end. So any improvement there will make the difference.

Now if you go to where we should consider expansion, right, that is your question. Again, we can debate, but what we are doing in fuel with Chevron and Repsol is very nice. And I would like to do a little bit more whether doing those joint ventures bigger with more capabilities, novel seats. I guess that is a program that can surprise us or do another partnership with another oil company in another regions. We are looking at that already. So that might be one point.

And another point for foods or tropical oils is India. I guess our network of tropical alloys, refining and fractionation in India have to be expanded. So the consumption is there and it is growing. So we have a nice opportunity there going forward.

And I do want to touch, Andrew, on your question on the model. So as we ramp up to that $1 billion of surplus cash a year, it kind of -- it starts in '27 and it gets bigger as we get to 2030, get all the synergies captured, get the in-flight projects up and running, everything is cash flowing. What we've assumed is we're just going to pay down debt with that excess capital. So that's what's built into the model.

Obviously, we're not going to get into a mode where we get our leverage down to some ridiculously low number. Eventually, we'll either return that to shareholders in the way of more share buybacks, increase our dividend or if an opportunity comes along, we'll deploy some of that capital. But right now, we're just assuming debt paydown for that excess.

Luke?

Luke Washer, Hudson Bay Capital Can you, Greg, maybe talk about the key differences between the first transformation of Bunge and the integration with Viterra? And related to that, you guys talked about your proprietary software and pricing systems. What kind of systems were in place at Viterra that you're kind of upgrading have been combined with Bunge. And then just last one quickly, just to clarify on the synergies, the intangible opportunities you're talking about, just to be clear, that is not a part of the targets that are quantifiable in the slides.

Just to quickly answer that one correct. Yes.

Yes. Let me start and then I'll call on Robert and Pierre to add on. But I think what's different this time is we've already done it. We've got the experience. We've got the team in place that has that experience, and we've got more opportunities with this combined network than we did last time.

We probably also have, I think, and I'll let Pierre talk to it, but some opportunities as technology is changing to bring some different tools and capabilities to that. But I think that just gives us the momentum and the confidence to really lean in. And as I said before, that capacity that we built, we own that. And I think as an organization, we've even surprised ourselves what we were able to do the last few years, but now that's confidence that we're building off of.

Yes. I think -- I mean, on the comparison to the first turnaround to the turnaround, we started by shrinking. We're not shrinking here. So you have to understand that the mindset and what's going on with our talent is a very different kind of energy. We went with a lot of focus the first time around. Here, basically, we've had the pick of the best people from Bunge and from Viterra in any single job, and we've been very disciplined about putting every person in the best role they can fill and the excitement of the team to go and execute that is really tremendous. So it's a different feeling, let's say, and our status in the industry and so on before is a bit different.

When it comes to technology, generally speaking, and that's true in the comparison with the turnaround, Bunge itself was in a much more mature place. We didn't have SAP everywhere when Greg and John arrived. That was a very long, frankly, very painful process. We're happy it's behind us that we only have to do that once. But that creates a foundation that's made it much easier and quicker to act on certain of these things. Having that global business operations group in place has been very instrumental because we've got the structure. We've got the processes mapped and defined, so we can plug things in very easily.

I would say, generally, Viterra was overall less mature in terms of technology. There's a couple of pockets we found very interesting. They do much more global direct origination. That's something Julio talked about a lot. And their approach to the systems supporting that is -- was probably a step ahead of Bunge. So we're building on that, and we're going to accelerate it. And the other area is in terms of economic research, which is how we track supply and demand, involves crunching all our numbers. They were ahead in terms of having that more automated, more on the cloud. And again, and Robert's team is right in the middle of this, we're pulling on that and just accelerating it.

And then I would just add from the risk management perspective, we are mainly utilizing the legacy Bunge infrastructure and systems that we talked about. In fact, on day 1, the teams have created a solution that as soon as the transaction closed, we turn on the systems and we have full global visibility at the transaction level data to both Bunge and Viterra. So all of the analytics, the risk framework, decision-making from day 1, it effectively worked on one system.

We have time for one more. Tom?

We've covered a lot of the operating parts of the business. I did want to just maybe clarify on the refined side. We watched over the last few years kind of this boom as the RD industry really took off in the U.S. And then over the last couple of years, we've seen both the addition of pretreatment units and weaker demand in terms of feedstocks.

How do you see that playing out here over the next couple of years as presumably the demand for feedstocks ramp significantly. We do have pretreatment, but maybe it doesn't cover everything. And to what extent are you starting to see that shift now just recently because it does seem like markets have evolved quite a bit even since you last reported.

Yes. I'll start and then Julio -- but overall, I think we talked at the time that as pretreatment got built, some of that margin would come out of the refined side and the refining overages would go down, but that would move into the crude because demand for crude would go up, and so it would be more in the crush margin. So we've definitely seen some of that.

But I think your call out is exactly right. We're seeing demand start to pick back up as those economics are improving. Part of that's anticipation where the RVO is going to be, but some of it has been the recent move in the energy markets as well.

No, it's exactly that. We see processing and refining as one combo, and we were expecting that, right? So the refining per se, right, stand-alone will make less profit and all of that margin will be concentrated in the processing plant. So that is already happening. We are seeing that. So our refining will be more dedicated to food, which makes sense, but that is how we originally invested in that network.

And on demand side, before these 2 weeks, right, I mean the demand was already started, right? So we were already seeing a higher demand for low CI feedstock in the U.S. already.

That's it.

All right. Well, I just kind of like to put a bow on this and wrap up by saying thank you. Thank you for coming today. Thanks for your time. as being a people business and as I said, this is a team sport, I want to thank the Bunge team, the ones that got us to this point. But as I always said, our town hall, what I really want to thank them for is what we're going to do in the future because that's what we're really looking forward to. I also want to thank the team that made today possible and supported us. It's been a fantastic effort. We haven't done one of these for a long time, and we were happy to host you today.

And the last thing that I would say is that I love this business, love the people in it. The excitement of our team, this combined team, and you can't tell when you travel around the world, the plants and visit offices or plants or customers with our teams. You can't tell who was Viterra legacy or who is Bunge Terrace legacy because everyone is so excited about what we've built here and what we're building and what we're going to do with it that they want to be part of this. This is a special, special company, and we're really, really excited about the future.

When I called John and Robert and internally as we all talked about the going forward and some of the dreams we had in '19, it was like, look, this is an incredible company. We've got incredible passion for what we do and the purpose and helping connect farmers to consumers of feed, food and fuel, doing it in a sustainable way. And let's transform this company and let's use it to help transform the industry. And I'm really proud of what we've done, but we're just getting started. The rest of the journey is going to be fantastic over the next few years. I really hope you invest with us because if you don't, you're really going to miss the ride. Thanks for your time today. Great being with you.

If you please join us out in the reception area. Again, some light lunch and snacks and things and a chance to interact further with our executive team. And thank you again for coming.

Good day, and welcome to the Bunge Global SA Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, and thank you for joining us this morning for our fourth quarter earnings call. Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well.

I'd like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors.

On the call this morning are Greg Heckman, Bunge's Chief Executive Officer; and John Neppl, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I want to start this morning by thanking the team and recognizing their extraordinary work around the world, both throughout 2025 and as we move into 2026. This past year was one of execution, investment and integration, all in a market environment that demanded agility and discipline. In 2025, we reached a major milestone with the completion of our Viterra combination. The integration work our teams accomplished has been exceptional, and we remain highly engaged and excited about the progress we're continuing to make together.

Building on a foundation of cultures that were already aligned on doing what is right for customers, this combination brings both organizations together within our proven end-to-end value chain operating model, removing complexity and strengthening shared goals. As a result, we've increased connectivity and the flow of information across our combined organization, a crucial component to how we operate. As I've said before, it's our competitive advantage to have great people across the organization, having the same information at the same time and working towards unified objectives.

This alignment is already delivering results. We are unlocking synergies in origination, merchandising, processing and distribution, optimizing flows between origin and destination and capturing margin through improved logistics and better coordination. For example, previously, Viterra's origination activities in most regions would have been managed purely through a merchandising lens, leveraging a nimble platform built to operate on short lead times. Today, people managing the same network of elevators are now making decisions with a more complete picture of our global platform, taking an integrated view that balances speed with longer-term considerations. This not only allows us to keep our processing and the refining plants running at high capacities, but also results in more profitable outcomes for both farmers and consumers.

We have capabilities today that we didn't have before, and we're just getting started. These types of benefits are durable and will compound over time. We will provide more details on synergy capture, capital allocation priorities and our combined long-term outlook at our Investor Day on March 10. And while we've been integrating Viterra, we've also been working to advance our large greenfield projects, navigating trade flows, policy uncertainty and geopolitical volatility, all while staying focused on connecting farmers to end market demand across food, feed and fuel.

Shifting to our operating performance. Our fourth quarter reflected higher results in all our segments, driven by strong execution and our expanded footprint and capabilities. John will go into more details in a moment.

Externally, the environment remains complex with limited forward visibility. Geopolitical tensions, evolving trade flows and uncertainty around biofuel policy, and that's particularly in the U.S., continue to influence farmer and consumer behavior. Based on what we can see today in the current environment and forward curves, we expect full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $7.50 to $8.

And with that, I'll turn it over to John for more details on our financials and outlook.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to the earnings highlights on Slide 5. Our reported fourth quarter earnings per share was $0.49 compared to $4.36 in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our reported results included an unfavorable mark-to-market timing difference of $0.55 per share and an unfavorable impact of $0.95 primarily from notable items related to the settlement of our U.S. defined benefit pension plan, Viterra transaction integration costs and an impairment of a long-term investment. Prior year results included a net positive impact of $0.98 from notable items, primarily related to the gain on the sale of our sugar and bioenergy joint venture, partially offset by Viterra transaction integration costs.

Adjusted EPS was $1.99 in the fourth quarter, which included approximately $50 million of net tax benefits versus $2.13 in the prior year. Adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, were $756 million in the quarter versus $546 million last year, with all segments showing higher year-over-year results.

In the Soybean Processing and Refining segment, slightly higher results were primarily driven by South America, reflecting higher processing and refining results in Argentina and Brazil. In the destination value chain, lower processing results in Europe and origination in the Americas were partially offset by improved results in Asia. Results in North America were lower in both processing and refining. Higher process volumes were largely attributed to the company's expanded production capacity in Argentina. Higher merchandise volumes reflected the company's expanded soybean origination footprint.

In the Softseed Processing and Refining segment, higher results were primarily driven by better average processing margins and the addition of Viterra softseed assets and capabilities. In North America, higher results -- higher processing results were partially offset by lower results in refining. In Europe, results were higher in processing and biodiesel but lower in refining. In Argentina, results were higher in processing and modestly higher in refining. And results in global softseeds and global oils merchandising activities also increased, reflecting strong execution.

Higher softseed process volumes primarily reflected the company's increased production capacity in Argentina, Canada and Europe. Higher merchandise volumes were driven by the company's expanded softseeds origination footprint. For Other Oilseeds Processing and Refining segment, improved results reflected stronger specialty oils performance in Asia and North America, along with higher global oils merchandising activity. Results in Europe were in line with the prior year.

In the Grain Merchandising and Milling segment, higher results were primarily driven by global wheat and barley as well as wheat milling, partially offset by lower results in global corn and ocean freight. Higher volumes were primarily reflected the company's expanded grain handling footprint and capabilities along with large global green crops. Prior year results included corn milling, which was divested in the second quarter of 2025.

The increase in corporate expenses was primarily driven by the addition of Viterra. Higher other results primarily reflected our captive insurance program, partially offset by $10 million of prior year income from the sugar and bioenergy joint venture that was divested in the fourth quarter of 2024. Net interest expense of $176 million was up in the quarter compared to last year, reflecting the addition of Viterra, partially offset by lower average net interest rates.

Let's turn to Slide 6, where you can see our adjusted EPS and EBIT trends over the past 5 years. The recent performance trends reflect less volatility due to more balanced global supply and demand environment, particularly in grains and the impact of ongoing trade of biofuel uncertainty that has created a very spot transactional market environment.

Slide 7 details our capital allocation. For the full year, we have generated just over $1.7 billion of adjusted funds from operations. After allocating $485 million to sustaining CapEx, which includes maintenance, environmental health and safety, we had approximately $1.25 billion of discretionary cash flow available. We paid $459 million in dividends and invested approximately $1.2 billion in growth and productivity related CapEx. We received approximately $1.2 billion of cash proceeds from the sale of a variety of assets and businesses, and we also repurchased 6.7 million Bunge shares for $551 million. This resulted in $173 million of retained cash flow.

Moving to Slide 8. At year-end net debt, excluding readily marketable inventories or RMI, was approximately $700 million. The recent change versus history reflects the impact of the acquisition debt assumed and issued related to Viterra. Our adjusted leverage ratio, which reflects our adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.9x at the end of the fourth quarter.

Slide 9 highlights our liquidity position, which remains strong. At year-end, we had committed credit facilities of approximately $9.7 billion, of which approximately $9 billion was unused and available, providing ample liquidity to manage the ongoing capital needs of our larger combined company.

Please turn to Slide 10. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted ROIC was 8.1% and ROIC was 6.9%. Adjusting for construction and progress on our large multiyear projects and excess cash on our balance sheet, our adjusted ROIC would increase to 9.3% and ROIC to 7.5%. As a reminder, from last quarter, we decreased both our weighted average cost of capital and adjusted weighted average cost of capital from 7% and 7.7%, respectively, to 6% and 6.7%, respectively, reflecting the recent upgrade in our credit rating, change in capital structure of the combined company and lower interest rate environment. Importantly, we're not lowering our long-term investment return expectations.

Moving to Slide 11. For the year, we produced discretionary cash flow of approximately $1.25 billion, similar to the prior year, and a cash flow yield or yield or cash return on equity of 9.4% compared to our cost of equity of 7.2%.

Please turn to Slide 12 and our 2026 outlook. Taking into account the current margin and macro environment of forward curves, we forecast full year 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $7.50 to $8. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, the environment remains complex with limited forward visibility, particularly related to U.S. biofuel policy. As a result, we believe the curves do not properly reflect what opportunities should develop during the year once the policy is finalized.

Additionally, we expect the following for 2026, an adjusted annual effective tax rate in the range of 23% to 27%, net interest expense in the range of $575 million to $625 million, capital expenditures in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion and depreciation and amortization of approximately $975 million.

With that, I'll turn things back over to Greg for some closing comments.

Thanks, John. So before we go to Q&A, I want to just offer a few thoughts. Through our disciplined execution, portfolio optimization and strategic investment, we've reshaped this company into a more agile, diversified and resilient Bunge. We've overcome multiple obstacles, including geopolitical shifts that continue to reshape global trade flows. Yet through all of that, our team has executed, adapted and delivered.

Those experiences only strengthened our confidence in our ability to succeed going forward. With the addition of Viterra, we now have greater reach across origins and destinations, deeper insight into global flows and more capability and optionality to serve customers and manage risk. We're still on a transformation journey, and continuous improvement is part of who we are. At the same time, our Bunge team is operating from a position of greater strength than at any point in our history.

We've never been in a better position, we've never been more needed and we've never been more prepared. Thanks to our people and the global infrastructure we operate, and we look forward to sharing more on the opportunities ahead of us at our Investor Day on March 10. In the meantime, I'll close by saying, as we look ahead, I'm confident that capabilities that we've built will allow us to deliver value in any environment while continuing to connect farmers to the markets to sustain communities and feed the world. With that, we'll turn to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Tom Palmer with JPMorgan.

I know that your guidance does not take a view on how industry conditions might change. But I had a couple of questions here. One, I wonder to what extent you think the RVO might be reflected in the curve today? And then when we see board crush margins moving higher over the past month or so, has this had much impact on the margins that you are able to capture in your crush operations up to this point?

Sure. I'll start on that, John. So yes, you're correct. Our outlook, we did not put any assumptions about what the RVO would do to the curves over the profitability beyond what the curves are already showing. Now as you called out, we've definitely seen the U.S. curves, especially in the second half, right, improve a little bit. We think those probably driven by RVO tailwind expectations.

Now that being said, there's not much business done beyond Q1 right now that we're still pretty open on the balance of the year. And then the other feature, I think you've got pretty high oil stocks in the U.S. until we see that demand come on, which is a little different than the rest of the world where the oil S&Ds are pretty balanced. And that could get cleaned up pretty quickly should we get the RVO enacted. But the actual details are important and the timing is important. So we all wait, but to stay consistent, we just gave the forecast on what we can see today and what the curves are today.

Yes. Maybe just to add, Tom, that on top, oil has certainly been up and down based on market expectations, but we've seen good steady demand for soybean meal. I think that's a global phenomenon, but in the U.S. as well, soybean meal demand has been strong. So that's at least helping on a -- from a crush perspective.

Understood. I had a question just on the cadence for the year. I think historically, earnings have been a bit more weighted to the second half of the year than the first half, but the composition of the business has obviously changed quite a bit here. So any thoughts on both kind of the earnings cadence as we think about this year, and to what extent that might be reflective of what normal seasonality might look like in the business as we look forward?

Yes. Tom, I think how we're looking at this year, and I don't know that this is necessarily going to be indicative of the future, but just given where the forward curves sit today, we're looking at a first half, second half way to more like a 30-70 this year, which is a little lighter first half than maybe what we typically see. And then even on the Q1, Q2, we're looking at a 35-65 type split. So absent the impact of RVO change in Q1, really, we're going to be, through the end of Q1 by the time that probably gets resolved, pretty light Q1. So 35-65 first half and 30-70 for the full year.

Our next question comes from Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research.

I just wanted to just clarify one thing on the guidance. So typically, you guys use the forward curve to set your guidance and adjust that based on what you're seeing in the physical markets. Is that any different? Did you do anything different this time? Like just did you just take the curves and then make adjustments for what you're seeing as far as basis, et cetera? Or just wanted to clarify that.

Yes, Heather, thanks for the question. Yes, we're a little boring in our consistency. So yes, we use the exact same approach that we've been because we just think that makes it easier to understand how we come at this each quarter. But...

And I would just say it's -- right now, obviously, we would expect once the RVO is finalized for the conditions to improve. I mean that some of the dynamics we're waiting to hear are obviously, finalization of reallocation, the compliance years, are they going to have retroactive 2026 to the first of the year, when it's going to actually get finalized to start taking effect. So there's still some unknowns there until it actually gets codified. So rather than try to guess on all that, we just take the curves the way they are and let the market do its work.

And in a perfect world, we would get some clarity ahead of our Investor Day on March 10, but fingers crossed.

I was going to say my fingers are crossed, too. Then a big picture question. So since '22, '23, trade lanes have shifted, you don't have the disruption you had then. You've had quite a bit of crush capacity added in North America and South America. But you have more constructive biofuel policy in Indonesia, Brazil, Europe. And if this is anything -- if the U.S. is anything like [indiscernible], it's going to be much more constructive in the U.S. So putting all that together, increased capacity, but much greater demand, do you envision a scenario where crush margins, both soft and soy could replicate what we saw in the '22, '23 time frame? I know those are a lot of what ifs, but just would love to get your thoughts on a scenario like that.

Yes. No, you've called out a lot of the key things that we're seeing. There's no doubt, as John said, the takeaway on meal globally has been better than everyone expected. Part of that, I think, continues to be the growth we're seeing in protein demand, especially in chicken and the growth there. On the biofuel policy, no, you're exactly right. There are things happening kind of everywhere, whether it's the B15 in Brazil and eventually going to B16 later this year. We think Indonesia the policy, they've shown the ability to continue to make changes there to adapt. What we're seeing in Germany on the RED III and then, of course, our own biofuel policy here. But I think what you're seeing is that governments understand the biofuel policy, it's good for the farming community. It's good for all those communities that value, that starts at the farm gate then moves through the value chain.

So I think we expect biofuel policy to continue to be constructive as far as comparing back to certain years. I don't know that I could make that exact call today, but I think we feel it's definitely constructive. What we do like, and you ask about soft, is we have a much more balanced footprint globally, not only in soy, but in soft, and we've added a larger percentage of soft crush now. And of course, that is definitely favorable with the oil demand, and that will favor soft crush going forward. So we think our more balanced footprint there will be helpful, for sure.

Yes, I might just add on, Heather. The other thing is we haven't really seen any global -- meaningful global disruption, whether it's weather or geopolitical here for a bit. I mean there's been obviously the trade issues with China. But when you really think about a big shock to the global system, there really hasn't been one for a while. And a weather event could really have a big impact. And given our global footprint going forward, I think we feel like we're positioned as good or better than anyone to handle that.

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

I had a couple of things. The first one, just from an operational perspective, I was hoping that you could maybe compare the Viterra operations kind of at the time of the acquisition to when you guys took over the Bunge business? And I guess where I'm coming from is, I'm just curious if you see similar opportunities to kind of transform the earnings power of the Viterra piece separate of the synergies through internal operations as has been the case of Bunge, or if there are any meaningful differences that you've observed?

I'd say the answer is yes. It was one of the things I think both companies were excited about coming together and doing the deal were that best and better practices. And as we're able to share that, it starts everywhere from the safety of our people as we brought the safety programs together and relaunched the combined safety program on the best and better practices. And definitely, there is a bit of a replay of what we did in 2019 when we joined Bunge. We're now looking at the combined portfolio and making sure that we're running the right assets and the right businesses where we have a right to win for the long term.

All the capital allocation is done from the center, and that's healthy for the teams to compete for that capital. Aligning the rewards programs and staying focused externally on our customers at both ends of the value chain and being able to do that from that global diversified balance that we now have across crops, across geographies and across origination as well as crush and distribution. We've got more capillarity and granularity at origination and destination than we've ever had.

And ultimately, you wrap all that in a risk culture. And I do think Bunge, when we joined had incredible capabilities as does Viterra. And it's been great that our teams did a ton of work preclose, and we hit the ground running on day 1 with one view of our global positions for the people to make decisions with. The teams have embraced the culture. They understand how the risk teams and the commercial teams work together in order to help manage the earnings at risk and run our assets at high capacity utilizations and help our customers manage their risk.

And I'll tell you, in this environment, that is really needed now and that has real value, and that's the one that continues to pay benefits over and over. So look, we're getting started. We've got a lot to do, but we really like the way the teams are engaging and working together here early on. And you're right, we've done a lot of this before, so it's just about doing the work.

Okay. Great. That was super helpful. And I apologize if I missed this, but can you share what you're assuming in '26 in the guidance for synergies on the cost and commercial side, and maybe how we should think about that phasing in within that the kind of split you gave for EPS through the year?

Yes, Andrew, this is John. So I would say on the cost side, which is what we've got baked into our forecast primarily, we're feeling very good about where we are. We're estimating about $190 million of realized synergies in 2026, which is actually ahead of schedule. When we look at what we laid out at the time we filed our proxy, laid out our expectations around synergies, we expected a second year -- full year about $175 million roughly. We're actually going to do better than that in 6 months earlier. So we've taken a lot -- we took some action ahead of close and actually started getting the organization structured and ready for the close of the transaction. So we had a bit of a head start coming into the close.

And in 2025 and prior, we realized a little over $70 million of synergy already by the end of 2025. And so we're looking at $190 million for next year, for 2026 year we're in now, with the run rate by the end of the year, somewhere around $220 million run rate by the end of the year. So we feel very good about that. Of course, that $190 million is baked into our forecast. On the commercial side, I think that's still developing. We've got line of sight to a lot of good things. But like anything, those ones are a little more difficult to quantify individually. But I would say, a relatively modest amount of synergy baked into the forecast on the commercial side.

Next question is from Salvator Tiano with Bank of America.

So I want to start a little bit with the synergy question. If I heard correctly, you said, this year, we expect to realize $190 million or $90 million?

$190 million.

So I guess this by our estimate is around $0.70 or $0.75 in EPS year-on-year growth. So how is the guidance, I guess, on the low end and, frankly, even adjusting for the dividend, even on the high end, lower year-on-year. It seems a little bit counterintuitive since even without the RVOs, the operating environment seems to have been a little bit better for commodities trading, for biofuels. So does this imply essentially a material decline year-on-year before the synergies? And why would that be the case?

Yes, a little bit trouble hearing you. But I would look at it this way. We're going to have -- with the full year of Viterra, obviously, we have a full year impact of share -- outstanding shares. We have full year of interest cost, full year of depreciation, some of those impacts, obviously. And I would say parts of the business that are yet to be performing as well as I think they could around grains and the merchandising business. I think going forward, we still have work to do there. But overall, I think, again, we're using the forward curves as they stand today, and I think that getting some clarity there and some upside, there will be some opportunity. But at this point, that's how we're seeing it.

And of that $190 million synergy if you look versus '25, there's $120 million incremental. We did about $70 million in '25. So for your modeling, it's $120 million incremental in '26.

Okay. Perfect. So that's extremely helpful. And the other thing I want to ask is a little bit about the cadence you provided earlier. It seems to us that this is implying kind of $0.80 in Q1, $1.50 in Q2 and then around $2.70 in the second half. So my 2 questions are, firstly, $0.80 in Q1, that will be probably the lowest EPS figure in a long time. And theoretically, again, the idea is that the markets are a little bit better than they were at the trough of last year, where EPS was much lower. So are there any specific items or segments that may be affected by timing, something that is pushing earnings away from Q1?

And the second part of the question is, if we're not really assuming a major improvement in the forward curves in the guidance, how are we getting to around $2.70 in EPS in the second half in each of the quarters? And if the RVOs come, are we talking about $3.50 or even $4 at some point in quarterly EPS?

Yes. I think if you look -- you're really close on, obviously, the first half kind of the breakdown there in terms of per quarter. And then the second half, I think we're looking at about a 40-60 on the second half at this point, but it's still way early. So a little difficult to predict that. But I think, look, a lot can happen. A lot of Q1 is baked already. We're a month -- more than a month into Q1. I think that we're off to an okay start. But again, when biofuel policy gets resolved -- Q1 is going to have largely been completed.

And so we're hopeful that it's going to provide us some upside here as we look through the balance of the year. But yes, Q1 is a really light quarter. We're a much bigger company and -- but a lot of uncertainty in what we found, what we've seen really second half of '25 and especially into Q1 of '26 is very spot customers on both ends. Farmers are spot. Our customers are very spot and it just creates less opportunity for us.

And if you look -- and I'd say, if you look kind of coming out of Q4, you've got -- on soy, you've got average margins are down in Q1 versus Q4. In soft, you've got crush margins down kind of seasonally versus Q4. And then you say, well, kind of how do you come out of Q4? One, you got to thank the team for really executing very well in a quarter where you had really no market catalyst, heavy stocks. You've got the uncertainty around the bio and trade policy. So I think what we saw there is the team executed very well, even though with ample supplies, farmers don't want to sell at the lower prices and your feed and food customers and fuel customers haven't needed to buy because they've been rewarded for waiting. So that environment is definitely carrying over into Q1.

Now that being said, as in Q4, I think there's opportunities there that the team will execute well against it. The other kind of feature is the Australian harvest was delayed somewhat by weather. That's now definitely an important feature of us. And that's sliding some of that from Q4 into Q1, but it also has brought margins down a little bit the way that, that harvest is developing and the demand is developing. So those are kind of some of the features.

Our next question is from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

One on green handling actually. Just to help us understand because green merchandising, it used to be not as relevant, but now with Viterra, it starts to become a little more of a heavy weight as well. So how should we think about the current conditions, right? 2025 was a lot of uncertainty with trade and the conflict between U.S., China, et cetera. So as you look through the opportunities in the business and the combined business and we talk about the merchandising, maybe ocean freight, et cetera, how should we think about the 2026 set up here? And what's like kind of like a level of disruption or activity that you need in this business to really make the most out of the now larger footprint that you're having?

Yes. I start by reminding us, right? We've got 6 months under our belt running it together. So this -- we're looking forward to the first half as it is a very seasonal business. We'll get to see Q1 and Q2 with the combined platform, and then we'll start lapping the time that we ran together in the second half of last year. So look, the teams are continuing to adjust and do the scenario analysis for a number of things that can happen. But there is that important baseload business, right, serving customers every day. We've got the geographical balance. We should have the absolute best cost position to be there with the right product, the right quantity, the right quality at the right price. So we'll do that baseload business and then adjust to whatever disruptions. And we've already seen some of that where we've had to repair origins and destinations and where we actually had to develop some new destinations because of some of the trade disruption.

So I think that becomes standard part of the business. And as you called out as well, ocean freight, we've combined that group. We're a very large user, of course, of the ocean freight. We're starting to see the benefits of that larger platform and some of that lowering the cost between origin destination and being able to react faster to change. So I think part of it is just getting the reps, getting to fewer systems and processes and having the teams continue to make those improvements. So whatever the environment, we know it will improve eventually. But until it does, I know our team will get all of the benefit that we can out of it.

And Ben, maybe I'd just add, I mean, we -- for Q4, we only had a $30 million increase year-over-year in the segment. And I think as you look into 2026, you should see a better year-over-year improvement, especially in the first half, obviously, when we don't have the comps are against the prior Bunge only. But even in the second half, we expect the comps to be better versus the combined company second half. So it's moving in the right direction. It's just -- that's the biggest part of Viterra's business.

And while we are really, really pleased with how well the crush was folded in very quickly because we had a much larger crush footprint, so that folded in very nicely the network quickly. We have a lot more people, a lot more assets, a lot more locations involved on the merchandising and handling side, and it's more work. But to Greg's point, we're doing the right things. We've got the teams focused. It's just going to take a little bit longer to get that humming.

Okay. And then my second question real quick is CapEx, obviously, last year was, give or take, $1.7 billion, of which little more than $1.2 billion was for growth. The guidance you've issued for this year is more or less the same level, if we take the midpoint here, just a little bit lower. I suspect the sustaining CapEx goes a little bit up, but it's probably still going to be roughly $1 billion in growth investments. So how should we think about the return on investments here or that $1 billion plus last year, probably another $1 billion this year. What's like the return you're expecting from that and especially the timing of those returns?

Yes. Let me start with -- maybe talk about the mega projects. So our spend on mega projects, so the 4 large capital projects that we've -- the multiyear projects, that spend is going to drop about $350 million in 2026 as we finish -- kind of get to the completion dates on the projects. So that leaves -- that's about 6 -- call it, $600 million to $650 million on the mega projects that will be largely wrapped up by the end of the year. We really don't -- we have not modeled in really much, if any, contribution from those projects. So the Morristown plant is in commissioning now and we'll be running this year. Obviously, a lot of the time this year is going to be spent on qualifying the plant for our food customers. We will get some volume through there, but probably not high enough capacity utilization to have a meaningful contribution in '26. So we've not really added much in the forecast for that.

And then our Destrehan barge unloading and crush plant expansion, remember the crush plant is in the joint venture with Chevron. And then the barge unloading those will be up midyear. And of course, we're not -- we don't have a lot baked into the forecast on a contribution in '26 for those either. I think they'll really be contributing a lot more as we get into '27. And then our -- the final project is [ Weston ] plant in Netherlands that will be up and running in, for the most part early '27. So not a lot of contribution from those in '26, but we should see a bump up in '27 relative to that spend.

We've got also -- we've earmarked a few hundred million for other growth projects in '26 to round out the $1 billion rough number. Those haven't all been approved, and we'll review those as we go and may or may not decide to do those. But we've got that included in the forecast. That's why we have a range of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. If we did all of that, we'd be closer to $1.7 billion. If we choose not to do some of those projects, we'll be closer to $1.5 billion. And those, obviously, anything we're constructing during '26 likely wouldn't have a meaningful impact on '26 returns.

The next question comes from Steven Haynes with Morgan Stanley.

Lot's been covered. Maybe just another way on the guidance. I think in the past, you've provided some directional, I guess, guide by segment. I realize it's maybe a bit harder just given the first half of last year doesn't have Viterra in it and this year has a full contribution. But is there a way that maybe you could frame by segment working back from the midpoint of your guide, like whatever adjusted EBIT is kind of assumed at that level? How you see that splitting out between each of your businesses this year?

Yes. So if you look -- Steve, this is John. If you look at kind of our core segment EBIT, so that's defined as a segment results before corporate. I'd look at it this way. About half that EBIT is going to be in our soy processing and refining, is how we're looking at it for the year, so call it 50%. About 1/4 of it in our soft processing and refining segment. And then grain merchandising and milling, we're forecasting to be around 20% of it, and then the remainder of the -- remaining 5% would be in our other processing and refining. That's kind of how we see the rough forecast for the year. And then, of course, offsetting that, to some degree, will be the corporate and other, which we would expect to be, call it, $120 million, $125 million per quarter negative against that.

The next question is from Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital.

With regard to the RVO, the administration has been quite supportive of the U.S. and farmers nearly at every turn. We have heard in recent weeks a range of 5.2 billion to 5.6 billion gallons per BPD volumes. I guess, where is your view on where the administration will land on absolute volumes, and the half RIN generation concept for imported products and feedstocks?

Derrick, this is John. I think on the 5.2 to 5.6, I don't know that we see where it's going to end up. Obviously, we prefer the 5.6, obviously, but we're hopeful they will at least start at the midpoint of the range and maybe go up from there, especially given that it appears and pretty likely that the half RIN, the 50% RIN is not going to take effect in 2026. They're going to kick that can down the road to 2027 and make a decision then. So hopefully, given that decision, they'll move to the high side of this range of 5.2 to 5.6. But we don't -- obviously don't know that yet and hoping here over the next few weeks to get some clarity.

Okay. Let's hope your crystal ball is right on the 5.6 side. But maybe on a similar topic. So I read in a recent trade article that Bunge was recognized as the first company to certify soybeans for use in the production of SAF under the CORSIA PLUS protocol. To the degree that you can, could you speak to that market opportunity for Bunge from this development given the favorable price realization for SAF over RD and the tightness we're seeing in qualified feedstocks for SAF?

Yes. Look, I think we don't have anything baked into our forecast for that. So anything that develops during the year is going to be upside for us. I think it's still a fairly nascent market, at least from the way we participated up to this point, but certainly is going to be incremental demand, it could be massive incremental demand if it really gets rolling. But we work a lot with the end fuel customers. We've got relationships with all the large fuel producers and those that produce jet fuel. So we're optimistic that as that gains some traction, we'll be right there to participate. But I would tell you in our 2026 numbers, we don't have anything meaningful baked in for that. So looking forward to seeing how it develops.

So we are focused on this. I mean, for the long term. I mean one of the things that we've got with the partnership with Chevron and the partnership with Repsol and some of the other fuel customers, right? It's not only serving them with the current origination that we have, but now having the touch we do globally with more farmers than anyone else as we're working to develop some of these new novel seeds and cover crops, we'll have the ability to meet what their needs are for the long term, whether it's SAF or renewable diesel or traditional biodiesel. So really excited about the combined capabilities of the company and definitely want to be the partner of choice for the fuel industry.

The next question comes from Matthew Blair with TPH.

Great. So for the $7.50 to $8 guide, you mentioned you're just taking the current futures curve. As we think about the spread there, the low end versus the high end, what determines that? Is that just based on Bunge's execution? What puts you at the low end of the guide? And what puts you at the high end?

Yes. I'll start, John. I think how we see, the market continue to develop from a demand standpoint, we talked about the soy stocks are definitely heavy, but we have seen that's only in the U.S. merchant milling, we'll see how as we have that first half of the year running the combined footprint. And as the crops come off here in Australia, as some of the trade disruption that we've had, we really expect it to be not as complicated as last year. That should be good for our merchandising segment.

From an overall -- the other is just, we continue to work, not only on the cost synergies, as John said, kind of trying to deliver more and faster. And then the commercial synergies as we're on the front end as the teams work together as those plans continue to develop, those could continue to benefit us in the second half. So I think the combined platform, we've just got more levers to pull on both the cost as well as the margin side than we've ever had.

And I would just add, Matthew, that when you look at our soy and soft, we can use the forward curves for a majority of that business. And so we feel like whether we agree with the curves or not, that's what we use, and that's got a fairly decent level of specificity to it. But when you get to the merchandising and milling side, there are no forward curves. And so what the environment is going to be like, I think if we continue on with a global heavy stock spot customers, not a lot of opportunity in that market, it's going to be a little bit tougher. But again, volatility disruption, global demand shifts, trade policy changes, all those things create opportunity on the merchandising side that is really hard to model in. So we will obviously be able to be in a good position, as Greg pointed out to take advantage of those things.

Probably 2 other things worth mentioning, right? We saw last year China drawing a lot of beans out of Brazil, particularly in South America overall that created headwinds for crush there. And then, of course, as the U.S.-China issue got solved, then taking beans out of the U.S. in the fall, which created some headwinds for crush margins there. We'd expect to see a more normal flow in the coming year.

And then on the soft side, of course, we've had 2 years in a row of tough sunseed production in the Black Sea, Europe area. And that's been hard on margins. So while we've got some more balance in Argentina on the sun crush side, and we had good crops there in the second half, I think if we can get a good sun crop, that should be improvements in Black Sea and Europe for sun crushing. So those are some of the flags, I guess some of the bigger issues that we're watching develop.

Sounds good. And for the follow-up, so renewable diesel margins in the U.S. are already moving up quite a bit in the first quarter. Are there any signs in your system yet on a larger pool for soybean oil from the renewable diesel space? Any signs that U.S. renewable diesel utilization is stepping up as these margins improve?

We're seeing some modest pull, but honestly, I mean, stocks continue to build in oil. And I think until we get clarity and the producers have certainty, we're still going to see stocks build. But as we look at the model and we look at the demand, it can turn very quickly. And we could go from a surplus oil environment today where we're building stocks to a very tight market very quickly. And our expectation would be, if we get to the 5.2 or 5.6, depending on even under either of those scenarios, there's going to be substantial pull on soybean oil, canola oil as favored bean stocks along with the domestic low CI, and we'll see things tighten up fairly quickly. Obviously, everybody is kind of waiting to see what's going to happen. Yes, there's starting to be some anticipation of that, but not anywhere near what we will expect once things are finalized.

The next question is from Manav Gupta with UBS.

So my first question is the buyback was pretty strong in 3Q and -- sorry, in 3Q and it dropped off a cliff in 4Q, like you went from $545 million to $6 million. I'm just trying to understand why such a steep drop? And how should we look at buybacks going ahead?

Yes. We just -- we stepped in the market to get a majority of it done. We just -- we didn't complete it all at the end of Q3 and going into Q4. But we're absolutely committed to wrapping that up the remaining program, and we'll get that done, I think, fairly soon.

Relative to ongoing, I think as we look forward, we definitely see an opportunity to make share buyback a bigger part of our capital allocation process, and we're going to discuss that more on Investor Day, certainly as we provide more of a forward outlook. But this machine should generate a lot of cash going forward. And our view is that return to shareholders is going to be a more critical part of our ongoing capital allocation as we move forward. And -- but we'll highlight more details on that in March.

My second question is, when you look at Street for 1Q, it's like [ 176 ]. Your guidance is implying [ 80 ]. Like where do you think the Street is getting it so wrong versus what you are guiding. Like why is the state almost double where you are in terms of your guidance?

Yes. I think it's difficult to say maybe at this point other than maybe understanding the velocity of what we're seeing that maybe the RVO impact would start getting traction in Q1. And that obviously has been delayed, and we're fairly locked for Q1. So even if we get -- as things improve, we have some open capacity to capture some of that. But by the time the RVO gets finalized and enacted, we're going to be through the quarter. And maybe there's just some -- a bit of disconnect in terms of the timing of that.

I'd say also what I hope you heard is we kind of talked through that, while this is fairly back half loaded, as we talk about the range, it feels like there are a lot more things that could kind of turn to the favorable versus be challenging as we think about how markets develop, policy develops, more normalized trade flows versus what we saw in '25. And where we've got a big global machines run with a lot of long lead times, all those things are favorable. So I think we had to look at the things that could kind of tip to negative or positive. I think we feel things are maybe more bent to the positive when you roll them all up. So I hope that's clear.

Next question is from Pooran Sharma with Stephens, Inc.

Just wanted to start off and get a little bit more granularity into the commercial synergy opportunity. I think you mentioned a few details on the call. But I was just wondering what are the opportunities that you've kind of uncovered, and what are some of the things that you're working on? Anything kind of higher level would be helpful.

Sure. There's no doubt as a processor, the vertical nature of this combination with Viterra having much stronger origination and Bunge having a bigger processing footprint as a processor, the more you can buy direct from the farm, the better that is for controlling everything from your pipelines and capacity utilization and quality and yields and everything. And we've definitely got a lot of focus on increasing the percent we buy direct from farmers and providing the markets for them. And now we've got much more capability to do that. We're seeing that gain continue to push forward a higher percent bought direct, and that will continue.

And then as we talked earlier, when you're optimizing the total footprint, you'll make different decisions than when you were competitors on the timing of understanding the needs of a processing plant and also understanding the needs of our origination and being able to keep the flows moving through the ports into third-party customers. So getting the reps with the team and getting an understanding of our combined capabilities has been great. And then even if you take something like and talk about our softseed crushing platform, I talked about we're much more balanced not only on our seed origination and global merchandising, where we've seen a number of opportunities with some of the trade disruptions to be able to continue to get farmer seed to market and find the right demand, but also on the meal, on the sun meal and the canola and rapeseed meal, where when we look at the combined footprint, we've been able to connect origins and destinations that weren't connected before.

And then as some of those trade lanes were shut off and were not economical, we've even developed some new markets that didn't exist before. They weren't using some of these products. And so we've been able to grow those markets. And it's just the combined capabilities as we get the repetitions to continue to peel those opportunities back. And just the way the teams are working together, I just couldn't be more pleased and I've had the opportunity to do a lot of travel around and visit plants and visit the offices and visit ports. And it's fantastic to go into a room and nobody says, I was Viterra, I was Bunge, it's just everybody is Bunge. The teams are excited about the capabilities that we've got in this global platform and what we can do to serve our customers to work together. And there's no lack of challenges in the world right now, but I don't think anybody is better equipped than Bunge to deal with it.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Greg Heckman for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank everybody for joining us for today. We appreciate your interest in Bunge. We look forward to speaking to you again very soon. And I hope everybody has a great day. Thank you.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Good morning, and welcome to the Bunge Global Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Release and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Drew, and thank you for joining us this morning for our third quarter earnings call. Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well.

I'd like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind me that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view in respect to future events financial performance and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties.

Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors. On the call this morning are Greg Heckman, Bunge's Chief Executive Officer; and John Neppl, Chief Financial Officer.

I'll now turn the call over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Before diving into the quarter, I want to thank our team for their continued focus, discipline and execution in what remains a highly complex operating environment.

Across the company, our people are working together, navigating uncertainty, capturing opportunities and delivering value for all stakeholders. With the Viterra transaction closing behind us, this was our first quarter operating as a combined company and I'm very pleased with the way our teams have embraced integration and the One Bunge culture.

We are already seeing tangible benefits from bringing these two highly complementary businesses together, benefits that go well beyond cost savings. We have aligned the combined company along our proven end-to-end value chain operating model. This structure enables us to run with greater agility, transparency and collaboration across origination, merchandising, processing and refining. What's different and powerful about our combined company is the increased granularity and information we have at both origin and destination. We've connected more local and regional networks into our global platform, giving us insights and optionality we didn't have before.

These competitive advantages are allowing us to respond faster to market signals and execute more efficiently across the value chain, identifying opportunities to optimize our footprint, better coordinate flows between origination and destination and capture margin through improved logistics. These efficiencies are lasting and will benefit the entire value chain over time from farmer to end consumer. They're being unlocked because our teams not only have the same information at the same time, but are also working toward a single set of objectives for our global company.

This knowledge sharing, along with collaborative planning is happening throughout the organization, from the elevator operator, to the commercial desk, to the end customer, and it's already driving better outcomes. Shifting to our operating performance. Our third quarter results reflected strong performance in our soybean and softseed processing and refining segments, where we saw the benefits of a more balanced global footprint and the initial impact of our team's work to capture commercial synergies. John will go into more detail in a moment.

As we shared on our business update call last month, we've recast our full year 2025 outlook to include Viterra. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, farmers and end consumers remain largely spot, reflecting continued macro trade and biofuel policy uncertainty. Based on what we can see today, we continue to expect full year 2025 adjusted EPS and in the range of $7.30 to $7.60. This reflects an expected second half adjusted EPS in the range of $4 to $4.25.

So with that, I'll turn it over to John for a deeper look at our financials and outlook. John?

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. On our October 15 business update call, we announced that starting with this quarter, we will change our reportable segment structure, from agri business, refining specialty oils and milling to 4 reportable segments. Soybean processing and refining, Softseed processing and refining, other oilseeds processing and refining, and grain merchandising and milling. The changes in segment reporting reflect the realignment of oilseeds operations into processing and refining by commodity type and combining grain merchandising and milling operations into one reportable segment. .

These changes reflect a tight interconnection of our upstream and downstream operations and aligns our segment reporting with our end-to-end value chain operating structure. Now let's turn to the earnings highlights on Slide 5. As Greg mentioned, the newly combined team executed well, delivering a strong third quarter. Our reported third quarter earnings per share was $0.86 compared to $1.56 in the third quarter of 2024. Our reported results included unfavorable mark-to-market timing difference of $0.87 per share and an unfavorable impact of $0.54 per share from notable items related to Viterra transaction and integration costs.

Adjusted EPS was $2.27 in the third quarter versus $2.29 in the prior year. Adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes or EBIT was $924 million in the quarter versus $559 million last year. Soybean processing and refining results improved in all regions, reflecting a combination of higher margins, strong execution and the addition of Viterra's South American assets.

[indiscernible] destination value chain, higher results were primarily driven by processing in Europe and Asia and origination from South America. In North America, higher processing results were more than offset by lower results in refining. In South America, results were higher in processing and refining. And in Global Oils, higher results reflected strong execution. Higher process volumes primarily reflected the combined company's increased production capacity in Argentina.

Higher merchandise volumes reflected the combined company's expanded soybean origination footprint as well as the strong South American soybean exports. Higher softseed processing and refining results were driven by higher average margins and the addition of Viterra's softseed assets and capabilities. In Argentina, results were higher in both processing and refining.

In Europe, results were higher in processing and biodiesel, while refining results were slightly down. In North America, results were lower in both processing and refining. Results from global softseeds merchandising activities were higher, reflecting strong execution. Higher softseed processed volumes primarily reflected the combined company's increased production capacity in Argentina, Canada and Europe.

Higher merchandise volumes reflected the combined company's expanded global softseeds origination footprint. For other oilseeds processing and refining, higher results in North America Specialty Oils were more than offset by lower results in Asia and Europe. The addition of Viterra has a minimal impact on this segment, which primarily consists of our tropical and specialty oils and soy protein concentrate businesses.

In grain merchandising and milling, higher results in wheat milling and ocean freight, plus the addition of the sugar business were partially offset by lower results in global wheat and corn merchandising. Higher volumes reflected the combined company's larger green handling footprint and capabilities. Prior year results included corn milling, which we divested earlier this year. The increase in corporate expenses was primarily driven by the addition of Viterra and performance-based compensation accruals.

Prior year other results included income of $6 million from the Sugar & Bioenergy joint venture that we divested in the fourth quarter of last year. Net interest expense of $145 million was up in the quarter compared to last year, reflecting the addition of Viterra, partially offset by a lower average net interest rates and higher interest income from investments in interest-bearing instruments.

Let's turn to Slide 6, where you can see our adjusted EPS and EBIT trends over the past 4 years, along with the trailing 12 months. Over this period, our team has excelled in managing a variety of different market environments while also executing on numerous internal initiatives, most notably Viterra integration planning and now execution.

The recent performance trend reflects less volatility due to a more balanced global supply and demand environment and the impact of ongoing trade and biofuel uncertainty that has created a very spot transactional market environment. Slide 7 details our capital allocation. Year-to-date, we have generated approximately $1.2 billion of adjusted funds from operations.

After allocating $282 million of sustaining CapEx, which includes maintenance environmental health and safety. We have approximately $900 million of discretionary cash flow available. We paid $324 million in dividends and invested $903 million in growth in productivity related CapEx.

We received approximately $1.3 billion of cash proceeds from divestments, including U.S. corn milling, an interest in our soy processing footprint in Spain to Repsol, final payment for our interest in the Sugar & Bioenergy joint venture that closed in 2024 and the Hungary and Poland assets as required for receiving regulatory approval in Europe. We also repurchased 6.7 million Bunge shares for $545 million.

This resulted in $386 million of retained cash flow. Moving to Slide 8. At quarter end, net debt exceeded readily marketable inventories, or RMI, by approximately $900 million. This change versus recent history reflects the impact of acquisition debt assumed and issued related to Viterra. Our adjusted leverage ratio, which reflects our adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.2x at the end of the third quarter.

Slide 9 highlights our liquidity position, which remains strong. At quarter end, we had committed credit facilities of approximately $9.7 billion, of which all was unused and available, providing ample liquidity to manage the ongoing capital needs of our larger combined company. Please turn to Slide 10. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted ROIC was 8.5% and ROIC was 7.2%.

Adjusting for construction and progress on our large multiyear projects not yet operating and the excess cash on our balance sheet, our adjusted ROIC would increase to 10% and ROIC to 8% Note that we decreased both our weighted average cost of capital and adjusted weighted average cost of capital from 7% and 7.7%, respectively, to 6% and 6.7%, respectively, reflecting the recent upgrade in our credit rating, change in capital structure of the combined company and the lower interest rate environment.

Importantly, we are not lowering our long-term investment return expectations. We also updated our return calculations to align with the change in our combined company profile. The change includes an expansion of merchandising RMI, reflecting our greater volume of softseeds and grains and removing the cumulative translation loss adjustment no longer considered material as a result of our more geographically balanced footprint.

Moving to Slide 11. For the trailing 12 months, we produced discretionary cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion and a cash flow yield or cash return on equity of 9.7% compared to our cost of equity of 7.2%. For this calculation, we also removed the cumulative translation losses adjustment due to our expanded footprint and are converting to a 4-quarter average to calculate adjusted book equity that better reflects the average capital base employed to generate cash over the period.

Please turn to Slide 12 and our 2025 outlook. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, taking into account third quarter results, the current margin and macro environment and forward curves, we continue to forecast full year 2025 adjusted EPS in the range of $7.30 to $7.60. This estimate reflects an expected second half adjusted EPS in the range of $4 to $4.25.

The difference in EPS ranges of $0.30 for the full year and $0.25 for the second half is due to different weighted average share counts used in the respective calculations. Additionally, we expect the following for 2025: an adjusted annual effective tax rate in the range of 23% to 25%, net interest expense in the range of $380 million to $400 million, capital expenditures in the range of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion and depreciation and amortization of approximately $710 million. With that, I'll turn things back over to Greg for some closing comments.

Thanks, John. Before turning to Q&A, I want to offer a few closing thoughts. We had a strong third quarter. We are capturing value from the combined platform, operating as one company and demonstrating the benefits of our expanded global network. Externally, we continue to navigate a high degree of complexity in the marketplace. And as mentioned, farmers and end consumers remain largely spot.

Global grain stocks-to-use ratios are elevated, dampening volatility and putting pressure on certain margins. And policy decisions, including biofuels and trade, remain in flux as we look ahead to 2026. But our platform is built to perform and to win regardless of the environment. We have the flexibility to adapt to shifting trade flows and keep products moving.

That's the power of our combined company. The scale, scope and resilience of a global network backed by the discipline to manage risk and deliver solutions that create value for all our customers, farmers and end consumers. So in short, we have the people, assets and processes to manage through uncertainty and the rigor to stay focused on what we can control, running efficiently, serving customers and creating value for farmers and consumers of food, feed and fuel.

So with that, we'll turn to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Pooran Sharma with Stephens, Inc.

Just wanted to start off by saying congrats on reporting a strong quarter. I think really demonstrates solid execution on your guys' part. I think the first question I wanted to ask about is just around biofuel policy clarity. I know there's a lot of moving pieces to get to that point of clarity. But as it stands right now, are you able to give us a sense of when you think the soybean oil side or the crush margin formula should start to see a notable improvement?

Yes. This was complex enough. Let me start, and I'll let John follow up. But look, on the RVO, we're hearing, I think, the same that the market is. The final proposal, we expect to be at the end of the year or early next. We all hope in the marketplace, I think, that sooner is better. So we prefer to have that by year-end. We know the volume is going to be significantly higher, but we want to have that certainty and get that locked in.

And then, of course, the SRE issue, seeing that those are reallocated 100% would make sure that it doesn't -- we don't lose any of that volume from the RVO and that, that gets executed. So look, the industry has made the investments in the soy and in the canola processing. And we need to see that demand put to work because that goes right to the farm gate, right?

That supports the farmers, that's domestic demand that we can control. From a timing, you did call out soy oil is really only weak here in the U.S. Oil demand has been pretty good globally. So then that starts to be probably early '26, we would like to think that we would start to see that improvement and then that would continue as the year moved on.

Great. Great. Appreciate that clarity there. I guess on my follow-up, just wanted to ask about grain under the new combined platform. I had always thought that storage income is more stable, but maybe has less upside than grain merchandising income.

Does the combined grain business offer more stability in earnings versus the legacy Bunge grain business given just the amount of storage infrastructure you have now versus what you all had before?

Yes. There's a couple of ways you need to think about it. From a baseline, it allows you a number of other ways, of course, to earn money, not only from the storage, but of course, drying from a handling and blending to certain specifics that depending on what customers want. Connecting it to -- remember, this is a vertical merger, connecting the origination capabilities that Viterra had, which are much stronger to the processing capabilities that legacy Bunge had -- so we're able to drive efficiencies through that value chain around transportation and logistics.

So those are kind of baseline and depending on crop, quality of crop and flows. And then the other, of course, is you not only earn the storage income, but then you also have the optionality by having the crop in place, knowing what qualities you have. And so whether it's a weather problem or an increase in -- a weather problem which hurts supplies or an increase in demand somewhere in the world that then calls on that storage to those customers, we have that optionality to then serve that demand with the right qualities and the right quantities and the right price at the right time.

The next question comes from Salvator Tiano with Bank of America.

Also congratulations on closing the transaction. Firstly, I wanted to -- now that we can talk explicitly about earnings and other segments they're segmenting, I want to see if you can clarify a little bit the impact on Viterra to EPS and EBIT. So when we think about that $2.27 EPS for Q3 or your full year guide, what was the impact accretive or dilutive from Viterra versus where would Bunge have been on a stand-alone basis?

And secondly, can you also clarify on an EBIT basis, as we look at the operating income you made in Q3 versus a year ago, how much of that growth was due to Viterra versus just legacy Bunge earnings growth or contraction?

Yes. Let me start and I'll let John put a finer point on it. But the one thing to understand is we're very quickly bringing this together with one team and running this as one company because that's how we're going to maximize profitability. So if you think about the one voice to the farmer to be able to get them to market or the one voice to the consuming customer to get them what they need. So we were much bigger in soy crush, but think about Viterra brought a great footprint there in Argentina, which made us very balanced globally in soy crush.

We're running a global soy crush business. So we're not thinking about it as Viterra versus Bunge, which is why we resegmented it along the lines we run the business. Soft, if you think about it, on the soft crush, Viterra brought a great origination and merchandising as well as some additional soft crush. We balanced out our global soft crush franchise.

And so we're running that as one global franchise as well as where they were much stronger, of course, in the origination storage handling on the grain merch side and supporting our milling, but even where the origination then is supporting our milling assets. So I'll let John put a finer point, but you really have got to think about this as one company here pretty quickly, and that's why we're kind of focused on the present and going forward.

Yes, I would just add that, Salvator, that we had a good third quarter across both what I would say is the legacy Bunge and legacy Viterra footprint in soy processing and refining a soft processing and refining. So it probably in totality, I think they both contributed well. If Viterra was -- as you can tell by the overall numbers forecast for the year, Viterra is mildly dilutive to the year. And I think we saw consistent results in Q3 that would support that. Not where we eventually want to get to certainly with the business and as we go after synergies and everything else. But I think early indications are very good as they were strong contributors on both the soft and soy side.

Clearly, on grain merchandising results weren't where we would expect on an annualized basis in Q3. But Q3 is kind of a funny quarter because it's between global harvest seasons in effect. And we've got Q4 here coming up, North America Harvest, obviously, European harvest and Australian harvest. We're going to see, I think, better results in grain merchandising in Q4 that will show the power of what we picked up on the merchandising side.

So certainly, looking forward to where we can go with this thing. I think early indications are very good. We're happy with the contribution so far. But I think into 2026, as we continue to work together and we get after the synergy capture, which is still early, I think we'll see more and more of the benefits.

Perfect. And then just want to follow up on the synergy capture you mentioned. So were there any synergies so far in Q3 or planned for Q4 material as part of that, I think, $341 million you had stated in your proxy. And how should we think about the timing of this synergy target? Will a lot of it be realized, for example, in 2026? Or is it going to take 2 or 3 years for that?

Yes. I think we'll -- look, here in Q3 and Q4 of this year, it's really more about taking the actions that's going to take to see those results. We'll see a little bit probably by the end of the year. But 2026, we'll see a bigger jump in the benefit from synergies for sure. And then I think we'll peak probably '27 will be a big, big step change in synergy capture. But I do expect -- we do expect to capture a meaningful amount in '26.

And I think even in fourth quarter '25, a number of actions that we'll take on a run rate basis by the end of the year, we'll see good progress. We do expect to be at or ahead of what we scheduled in the proxy as we move along, and we'll be, of course, be sure to keep everybody updated.

And then on the commercial synergies, remember, we didn't call those out. We said those will be to come because the teams, because of regulatory, our commercial teams couldn't work together. So as they're now able to work together as one team, you'll start to see that in the income line. And we're off to a good start, but we're just at the beginning of that. So that will build over time, and we'll have to prove that out with our earnings.

The next question comes from Heather Jones from Heather Jones Research.

I guess I wanted to start with Viterra, and I know it's deeply embedded now within the Bunge operations. But I was just wondering, to the extent you're able, thinking about Q3 and just the numbers that Viterra reported a year ago, do you have like a really rough breakout of how much was just better execution by the team relative to a year ago? And how much was a better industry backdrop for those operations for what we saw in this quarter?

Yes. I would -- Heather, I'd say we haven't gone back and dissected certainly Viterra's performance from a year ago versus this quarter. Obviously, we are aware that their performance coming into the close wasn't where we would have expected it. But at the same time, we've seen significant improvement already. And as I mentioned earlier, meaningful contribution in Q3 across both the soy and soft sides of things and then maybe less so on merchandising given timing, as I mentioned earlier.

Last year, there were certainly more challenges, I think, in the environment with poor Australian crop, which we expect to be much better this year and lower crush environment in Argentina. So those things have improved this year. So I think generally, we feel like there's more momentum on the legacy Viterra side.

And again, haven't dissected line by line with a year ago their performance. We're really, as Greg mentioned, focused on getting the stuff integrated and moving forward, but I feel very good about the contribution they made.

Okay. And then my follow-up is just assuming we get the RVO that I think everyone anticipates. And so just setting aside the timing, but sort of like let's just think of run rate as in mid-'26. And I'm thinking about it relative to the '22, '23 time frame. I mean, soybean meal is -- demand has been extremely robust. And if we -- what's going on in Europe and Brazil and then the RVO, bean oil, veg oil demand should be very robust.

But yet you don't have the dislocations you had then and you have more soy processing capacity. So as you're thinking about those considerations, how are you all thinking about what the margin structure would look like relative to what we witnessed in '22, '23?

Yes. I mean I think you started to frame the setup very well that we should have favorable U.S. biofuel and trade policy. Now timing will matter when that comes across. We're expecting big crops in South America and then probably a more balanced China program from the origins than we saw here in 2025 and being in all origins that suits us. We continue to see strong global soybean and veg oil demand.

As I said, outside of the U.S. has been the exception on soybean oil demand. So seeing that pick up would be a positive. And then as we said, look, we've got what I feel is the best global machine and the best team. So while these big crops come off, that should help improve on the merch side, which has been the drag to the business. Now at the very least, it should stabilize because stocks aren't burdensome globally.

So while we'll have a heavier supply/demand, we'll have storage, we'll utilize our system for that. But if there's really any problem in weather, you could see the grain side of thing get more interesting. So while probably don't see back to the 2023 levels, we do see we're at that part of the cycle where it feels like we're at the bottom of the cycle, it's kind of when things get better and how much better they get.

And as we start to get a view of that, of course, in -- when we do our Q4 earnings, we've always then start to talk about '26 and start to lay that out. So we'll be more prepared with more detail. And hopefully, a few of these things that are up in the air will land between now and then as well.

Yes. And I'd just add to that, Heather, Back in '22, '23, it was like the perfect storm of not only biofuel demand, but we also had some global disruption, Ukraine, Russia, Canada crop. So there were some things that created a lot of additional volatility. Certainly, some of that could happen. Obviously, we're one big weather event away from markets that could get interesting.

But nonetheless, as Greg pointed out, I think where biofuel policy is headed, certainly, things are going to -- should improve from here. And the question is how much, but I think we feel like we're well positioned to take advantage of the market as soon as it starts to turn.

The next question comes from Thomas Palmer with JPMorgan.

I wanted to clarify maybe expectations as we move from 3Q into 4Q in terms of the different reporting segments. Are there kind of segments where we might see just given the lower earnings outlook in 4Q that's implied more of a step down? Are there other segments that could actually improve quarter-over-quarter?

Yes, Tom, I'll take that, and then Greg can jump in. Yes, I think as you look forward, driven a lot by what we talked about around customers being very in the spot right now and a lot of the uncertainty, we're expecting a softer Q4 in both the soy processing and refining and soft Processing and Refining segments. again, driven a lot by some of this policy uncertainty and customer behavior.

We do expect -- and then largely relatively flat in the other processing and refining, maybe up slightly. But we do expect a meaningful improvement in the Grain Merchandising and Ming segment, given timing of U.S., European, I'll say, North American in general harvest, European harvest and Australian wheat and canola harvest season. We do expect a better Q4 there.

So -- and then we had a -- we do expect in that Corporate and Other segment as well, the negative to be not quite as big in Q4, just given timing of some expenses and things. So overall, we knew it was going to be down in Q4 and that as you can imply by the forecast for the year and where we finished Q3. But again, driven lower soy and soft and up a bit in Grain & Merchandising and milling.

Okay. And look, I'll try here. I guess, I don't know how much of a reply I'll get, but it's been a few years since you updated your view of mid-cycle earnings. I think the last update was $11 with $1 or more of upside if you opted for larger M&A.

I appreciate there might be more to come here in the coming year. But maybe at a high level, this outlook, what are maybe big swings to think about because that larger scale M&A did indeed happen?

Yes, Tom, we're -- our plan is to share that with you in March at our Investor Day. We're working on that right now, looking at our strategic planning, capital allocation plans, what we expect from the newly combined company, what we think we're capable of, where with the mega projects coming on line here, Moorestown actually this month up and running.

And then in 2026, having our Destrehan operations up and going by midyear and then following -- early following year, our specialty oils, we're going to recast everything and take a hard look at that. And so our intent is to share that in March with what we believe our go-forward mid-cycle is and as well as what the upside might be.

The next question comes from Manav Gupta with UBS.

So my first question is whenever you acquire something like for anybody, there are some positive surprises and then you come across some areas where you expect to have to work a little harder to realize the synergies. Now that you have got Viterra, help us understand where are the positive surprises and where you think probably a little more work is needed than when you initially decided to buy Viterra.

Yes. And I don't know if we're surprised. I think we've had a lot of confirmation of what we thought. We had a lot of time to do the work where we were waiting on regulatory. The thing that's always more work, right? John and I have had the benefit of being a public company, being a private company working together and being a public company again. So Viterra was private, and it was also not GAAP.

It was IFRS. So we knew that there was going to be a bit of a heavy lift to bring that into private company into a public company and switch over to GAAP. That's always more work than you plan it's going to be, and I can't say enough about the teams and what they've been doing to get prepared and to give the teams the information they need to run and serve our customers every day.

So that's probably always the heaviest lift and of course, around systems and processes and getting to fewer systems and fewer processes. And that's off to a great start. The team has a good plan, and we're executing it. per the plan and meeting our early milestones, which is exactly where we wanted to be. And then on the commercial side, I'd say we knew the cultures were very similar.

But again, we couldn't work together with the commercial teams because of regulatory and to avoid gun jumping. So now we finally get to have those teams work together. And you've had teams that were competing. These are highly competitive, aggressive people that have been competing with one another forever that are now on the same team. And John and I also have been working together a long time, and we've done a number of bolt-on acquisitions, and we've done a merger of competitors before.

And I think we knew what to watch for, but that has gone about as well as we could have hoped. And it doesn't always go that well. The way that people have worked together to focus on the priorities to work as one team to think about our customers, and they're not looking back. They're looking forward. And that's -- I think the surprise of how quickly that, that has worked has been great. And then both had a good risk management culture.

I'd say we were probably more developed as a public company around our systems, our processes, our rigor and our discipline and also very pleased how the teams have come together and embraced the risk management culture and the information that we're able to put at people's fingertips and able to run the business and make decisions. And I think that's been very positive.

So I really can't say enough about our teams and how I feel about we're off. Now look, it's very early. We've got a lot more to do, but I really like the way that we've started, and I can't say enough about the teams and thank our people enough because this is a real people business.

Perfect. My quick follow-up is it was great to see the restart of share buyback. I think it was $545 million. As the 2 companies come together and you are going to generate a lot of cash, help us understand a little bit what would be the uses of that cash going forward?

Yes. So as we get through -- in 2026, we expect to wrap up our mega projects, so the 4 large projects that we've had underway for a while. One is wrapping up now and the rest will wrap up, largely wrap up during 2026. We should see a considerable decline in the CapEx, at least that we have planned at this point.

And certainly, we believe with the strong cash generation, share buyback is going to be a meaningful part of our capital allocation going forward. Of course, yes, we'll always balance that with opportunity. But at this point, no doubt it's going to be an important part.

The next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

Actually, following up on the buybacks, that would be my follow-up question. Where do we stand now with that little over $0.5 billion that you've done in terms of what your initial consideration was for the buybacks when it came to the Viterra deal? Because I remember it was like $2 billion. Maybe help us understand where do we stand? What's missing? That would just a quick follow-up, and then I have my other question for you guys.

Yes. Since the announcement of Viterra, we've actually done a little over $2 billion of buybacks, but $500 million of that was related to our sugar divestment. So we've got about $255 million left on the actual Viterra program.

And so we'll get that -- we're well ahead of schedule on getting that executed and our plan is to get that done soon and then we'll go from there. But we're not going to be complete that and be done. I think we'll continue to assess that like we do with any capital allocation going forward and make sure we're making prudent decisions for our shareholders.

Okay. Perfect. And then just to understand a little bit, obviously, Argentina, thanks to Viterra, is going to play a very important role. And Argentina is known for let's call it, volatility and sometimes uncertainty just because of the political environment.

So maybe help us understand a little bit better how you think about the opportunities, but also the risks of the larger footprint in Argentina over the course of the year, how to think about like the farmer selling behavior, the crushing out of Argentina because clearly, this is something that's going to be really large within the grand scheme of the new Bunge would be great to understand the risks and opportunities here.

Sure. There's no doubt with the outcome of the election, I think we all believe that's going to be supportive of kind of improved macros going forward. And I think the one key thing to remember about Argentina versus Bunge pre-Viterra and kind of the new Bunge is we're much more balanced globally and especially on soy crush.

So where Argentina in the past could be disruptive, we wouldn't have the opportunity to benefit as much from Argentina with our footprint. Now what that does for our footprint on origination as well as on -- especially on soy crush and on soft crush is we're much more balanced globally on all parts of the business.

So we are now able to benefit from that and balance whether it's our soy crush or soft crush or our export programs, the wheat origination, which is feeding our combined wheat milling. We both had wheat milling in Brazil, which a lot of that is fed out of Argentina. So we'll benefit really across all of our external segments now with our Argentine footprint. So we're excited on how that kind of completed the global footprint there and look forward to Argentina continuing to improve.

The next question comes from Steven Haynes with Morgan Stanley.

Maybe just to ask maybe a similar question, but on Australia. Could you maybe walk through some of the high-level supply and demand trade dynamics there and just kind of how all that's flowing through Viterra's legacy assets there?

Okay. Yes, Australia, we've got a real big crop coming off there on wheat barley and Rapesed, which are all really important global crops for us with our origination now in every key producing region. So that's setting up very well. The thing to watch there, of course, weather that can kind of depend whether some of that falls in Q4 or falls in, in Q1 with some of the trade tensions between Canada and China around canola, we'll probably see some increased rapes seed exports coming out of Australia.

That should probably be positive. And then, of course, they'll be very competitive in the global market on wheat and barley. So excited to have those big crops and be able to put our origination storage handling export system to work there in Australia. We've got a great business down there.

Yes, Stephen, maybe I'd just add that legacy Bunge, we had a small export business there, but not something we talk much about because it just wasn't really material. But Viterra has a very good, very strong position in Australia. So to Greg's point, we're really pleased around that opportunity and things are shaping up there with the crop size this year to be a good beginning of the merger.

The next question comes from Derrick Whitfield with Texas Capital.

Congrats on a solid quarter. Regarding capital projects, while I understand that you're winding down several multiyear capital projects from a legacy Bunge perspective. Could you speak to any material projects that were underway at Viterra and if you're seeing new opportunities for growth investment from a Viterra perspective?

Yes. There was nothing really big. I'd say Viterra had a -- they had a few smaller, what I'd call kind of debottlenecking and operational improvement projects underway that we're completing now. So they bring a much more modest amount of CapEx pipeline to the combined company than what we had set up with our large projects, our growth. Obviously, we're looking at a number of things as we always do going forward.

We don't, on the horizon, see any big large capital projects like the ones we've had underway here for the last few years, but we'll continue to look at that. But as we've always said, we prefer to consolidate the industry and to add capacity where possible. But obviously, with the broader footprint, more opportunity, we'll make sure we'll always be taking a hard look at those.

But again, we do expect at this point to see a pretty meaningful decline in CapEx commitment post 2026, absent something else coming along. So ongoing, I think our expectation was between combined sustaining CapEx and growth, we'd be at about $1 billion a year as a combined company post 2026.

Great color. And then I just add on, it's been great as we brought the network together. The teams are now refreshing the strategy and our list of projects and priorities because each company had their own list of projects. And so we're able to look at that combined network to put those priorities together to figure out, okay, where do we have any holes in our global network of origination or processing or distribution.

And so then we'll be thoughtful, as John said, how we fill those in, whether it's a brownfield, a greenfield, a partnership. We want to be the partner of choice as you've seen us do things in the energy industry and do things with some of the ag input providers. So we'll be thoughtful about how we do that. But it's also been great for the teams to do that strategy work together as they get to know one another to do some meaningful work as we begin executing the combined platform.

Great color. And maybe as a follow-up on biofuels policy, what are your thoughts on whether the administration will pursue the half RIN concept for foreign feedstocks and products I guess, more specifically to your business, we're hearing the feedstock provision could be difficult to administer. So I'd love if you have any thoughts there from a policy perspective.

Yes. I think it's hard to say right now. We've heard a lot of rumors about technical limitations around executing the half RIN. We've heard mixed news on that. Whether it's really an issue, maybe it's not an issue, we don't really know yet. I think, obviously, we are pushing hard as the industry is for a full RIN benefit for domestic feedstock, but half a RIN for foreign feedstock, obviously, that's good for the American farmer. It's important to us in support of the farmers, our key customer. And we'll see where it goes, but we're doing our best to encourage that in D.C. and hoping that it gets implemented beginning in early 2026.

Okay. And was there a follow-up, Mr. Whitfield.

That's all. Great color. Appreciate it.

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

You guys have mentioned strong execution a number of times. It does look like you outperformed the market, outperformed some of the competitors. I was just hoping maybe you could provide some color on where that strong execution was. You've talked about still a lot of work to do to bring the organizations together and make it more kind of holistic going forward. But where are you already seeing some of that strength? I'm assuming that would be relatively repeatable. But just any color around that would be helpful.

Sure. I think it starts with where we've been able to connect the 2 systems, the origination with the crushing and whether that's the soy processing or the soft seed processing and then where we filled in some of the areas where we weren't as strong, as I was talking about in Argentina is a great example on soft crush, on sun crush as well as on soybean processing.

And that gives us that information. And in a market that is a bit complicated like we're operating in, having the information to be able to react more quickly. And in this quarter, it was things like where we still had open legs on the crush, executing very well to get every bit of the crush margin that was possible as we maybe rolled off the financial hedges and hedged out the physical to actually execute the programs.

And then where we're a better partner on transportation and logistics, right? So working with our transportation providers and even some of the dots that we've been able to connect between our origination and processing. When you look at it as a combined system, you'll make different decisions than when you were running 2 different systems. And so there's early wins falling out in the transportation and logistics as we're pairing the right origins and destinations.

And then the other is added liquidity in our own system. You can move faster and have the liquidity to get in and out of the positions that you need to, to execute for the farmer and for your consuming customer more quickly. And you're working inside your business with less friction internally, and that allows us to be externally focused and to move faster.

And that happens a whole bunch of times at a lot of places globally, and then you see it start to fall out in the P&L. So we'll be excited over time as we get to fewer systems and fewer processes. But right off the bat, we had a big focus on getting the commercial team the same information at the same time about our combined information along the value chains. And I think we're seeing that paying real dividends.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then I know I asked this on the business update call, but just as we think about next year on our side, is there anything from the back half of the year that we should keep in mind relative to your guidance for the back half of the year in terms of seasonality or abnormal type things as we start to build on that for next year?

Yes. I don't -- Andrew, I think the Q3, Q4 combined results, I wouldn't say there are any sort of anomalies there. Obviously, we're looking forward to -- I think the bigger contribution we'll see next year, obviously, aside from the commercial synergy capture as we move forward. Hopefully, we'll get rolling -- really rolling on some cost synergies.

But again, there's still a lot of uncertainty in the market. And hence, our call down for Q4, timing of policy change and trade and all those things are creating a lot of uncertainty, making it a bit difficult to predict 2026 at this point. Our plan is to provide that at our Q4 call. And hopefully, by then, we should have hopefully a lot more clarity around biofuel and around trade, things like that.

But at this point, I would say not anything unusual in the back half of the year here to draw to other than just we've done, I think, to -- as Greg discussed earlier, the teams are working really well together right out of the gate. And with that, we're pretty happy and looking forward to seeing what we can do here in Q4 and get our first 6 months closed out.

And when we're talking next year and comparing it to this year, I think if you're kind of asking a question about timing things, the ones that we're watching, and I think we all should be watching, that will be the timing around the biofuel policies. It will be the timing around the trade policies.

Those will be different in '26 than we saw in '25. I think we'll probably see a China program executed differently globally in '26 than it has been in '25. That will probably be better for the U.S. farmer than it has been. We've got big crops coming off everywhere. The only thing would be if we've got some [ lending ] risk.

And so if anything develops there, that could be an issue. And then, of course, we are dealing with these big crops. So everybody will be putting their storage to work. We have a big crop here in North America, big crops in South America, big crop in Australia. And so that will have the storage assets working harder than they did last year. So I think when you sum it up, we're really pleased with the deal we did here, bringing these 2 great companies together.

We're really pleased with the way the teams have started off. We've still got work to do, but we like how we started. And I think we talked all along, this was about giving us the diversification and the capabilities to be really relevant with our customers at both ends of the value chain and to have the resilience for whatever the external environment is.

And what that will ultimately be is us performing better than anyone else in the low part of the cycle. But the real key is we get everything in place, and you'll really see this machine work as we get towards mid-cycle or even some of those more robust parts of the commodity cycle is when I think you'll really see the benefit of this machine. So we're excited and doing the work and can't thank the team enough.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Greg Heckman for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in Bunge and look forward to speaking again soon. Have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Good day, and welcome to the Bunge Business Update Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Haden, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy, and thank you for joining us this morning. On the call with me today are Greg Heckman, CEO; and John Neppl, CFO. Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have slides to accompany our discussion. These can be found at the Investor Center on our website at bunge.com under Events and Presentations. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are posted on our website as well. I'd also like to direct you to Slide 2 and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflect Bunge's current view with respect to future events, financial performance and industry conditions.

Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Bunge has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation. We encourage you to review these factors. Again, the purpose of today's call is to provide you additional background on our new segmentation structure, recast outlook that now includes Viterra's results as well as to give you an opportunity to ask questions to help you understand the mechanics of these changes.

I thought it was important to get this information out to you in advance of our normal quarterly reporting process. As a result, we will not discuss the current market environment, the drivers of our third quarter performance or detailed assumptions in our outlook until we report our third quarter results on November 5. Our call this morning will be approximately 30 minutes. So if you have a question, please limit yourself to one. I'll now turn it over to Greg.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Before I turn the call over to John to walk you through the details of our new segmentation and recast outlook that now reflects the combination with Viterra, I'd like to make a few points in 3 areas. First, integration is progressing exceptionally well. I'm very pleased with the speed and the discipline of the teams as they identify and capture cost savings and commercial synergies. This is important, we're operating as a unified company, creating greater value in serving our customers at both ends of the value chain.

Every day, we're making more progress in reinforcing that this was the right strategic move for long-term growth and shareholder value. Second, as part of our integration, we have aligned our combined -- as part of our integration, we have aligned our combined business along end-to-end value chains, which we are confident will enable us to operate with greater agility and deliver value for all our stakeholders. Importantly, this is not a wholesale realignment. Rather, we're incorporating Viterra into our existing proven operating model. Part of that, we are updating our segment reporting to align with our operating structure.

We will benefit our investors by providing you with a clear understanding of the drivers of our combined company's results and our value chains. We've always been committed to transparency and candor and we're taking steps to align fully with those values. Lastly, we have also recast our full year 2025 outlook, which now includes Viterra. While we are still in the process of closing our third quarter financial results, early indications that our team delivered a strong performance.

At the same time, as we enter the fourth quarter, farmers and end customers remain largely spot, reflecting the continued macro trade and biofuel policy uncertainty. Based on these estimated results and our view of the current margin and macro environment, we expect full year 2025 adjusted EPS in the range of approximately $7.30 to $7.60, which reflects an expected second half adjusted EPS in the range of $4 to $4.25. Looking ahead, with our greater capabilities, scale and diversification, we're confident that we are even better positioned to capture opportunities as they present themselves. With that, I'll turn it over to John.

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the segment reporting changes on Slide 5. Beginning with our reported financials for the third quarter of 2025, we are changing our reportable segment structure from Agribusiness, Refined and Specialty Oils and Milling to 4 reportable segments: Soybean Processing and Refining, Softseed Processing and Refining, Other Oilseeds Processing and Refining and Grain Merchandising and Milling. We will continue to report Corporate and Other results.

The changes in segment reporting reflect the realignment of oilseed operations into processing and refining by commodity type and combining grain merchandising and milling operations into one reportable segment. These changes reflect the tight interconnection of our upstream and downstream operations. For example, over 90% of our nontropical oil refineries are co-located with crushing plants and margins often move between origination, crushing and refining activities depending on market conditions. While we are combining the reporting of processing and refining activities, we are splitting soy and softseeds into separate segments.

These had been previously aggregated in our Agribusiness Processing segment. Soy remains the largest contributor to earnings due to our global footprint's greater soy processing and handling capacity. With the addition of Viterra softseeds origination and merchandising operations in Canada, Australia and Europe and the additional global processing capacity that it brings, our softseeds footprint is now much larger. The new segmentation reflects its more meaningful contribution. We have combined our milling operations with our expanded global grains merchandising footprint, reflecting the tight upstream, downstream relationship with Brazilian wheat mills, which rely on imported wheat, particularly neighboring Argentina.

You may recall that we divested of our U.S. corn milling business earlier this year. Turning to Slide 6 for a more detailed look at the activities within each segment. I'll highlight a few things. Fertilizer results, which had been previously reported in agribusiness processing will be reported in soy processing and refining due to its tight linkage with the soybean origination in South America, where it is common practice to barter crop input supplies in exchange for crops. Second, origination and distribution of soybeans and softseeds, which Viterra brings as a global leader due to its broad network of handling and logistics assets will be reported in the applicable soy and softseed processing and refining segments.

Lastly, origination and distribution of corn, wheat, barley and other grains as well as cotton and sugar will be reported in our Grain Merchandising and Milling segment. Slide 7 shows our new volume reporting methodology. We will be increasing the visibility of our oilseed processing and refining volumes by providing them by commodity, by type as well as related merchandising of soybeans and seeds not directed to our processing plants. We believe our new segmentation and expanded volume disclosure will provide you with the tools to understand and evaluate the drivers of our global business.

Please turn to Slide 8 and our outlook. As Greg mentioned in his remarks, while we are still in the process of finalizing our third quarter results, indications are that our team delivered a strong performance. Taking third quarter estimated results into account, shares issued as part of the transaction, less shares repurchased through the third quarter and the current margin and macro environment and forward curves, we expect full year 2025 adjusted EPS for the combined company to be in the range of approximately $7.30 to $7.60 a share.

This estimated -- this estimate reflects an expected second half EPS in the range of $4 to $4.25. The difference in EPS ranges of $0.30 for the full year and $0.25 for the second half is due to different weighted average share counts used in the respective calculations. We'll provide a more detailed discussion of the specific drivers of our better-than-expected third quarter results and full year outlook as well as the market environment on our third quarter earnings conference call, which is scheduled for November 5. With that, we'll open the line up for your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question today comes from Thomas Palmer with JPMorgan.

I know you're not addressing guidance in a broader way, but I wanted to, I guess, ask on a couple of things in terms of disclosures. Just first, is there a plan for more detailed historic financials at some point? I think historically, you provide things like sales and gross margin and SG&A. And then on that forward outlook, if you could, I guess, any update on kind of interest expense, tax rate, what's kind of assumed for share repo in that outlook? I know you don't want to discuss kind of some of the industry trends, but maybe those types of items, we could get some added detail on.

Yes. This is John. I'll start, Tom, and Greg can jump in. From a history standpoint, we did provide in here a look at some of the prior history realigned for Bunge. And of course, in our filings that we'll do for the end of the year or for third quarter, fourth quarter and full year, we will provide restated history from a segmentation standpoint, but it will be Bunge-only history, given the fact that we didn't own Viterra number one; and number two, we have not gone back and done the work to split out their historical information.

With respect to some of the key points and drivers, if you look at our tax rate, we had guided originally to 21% to 25% on a Bunge-only standpoint. I think we're looking at the higher end of that range for the combined company. So you would expect to see higher tax -- effective tax rate in Q3, Q4, and then we'll talk more about '26 as we move forward. From a net interest expense standpoint, we expect the second half to increase about $175 million.

So full year going from about $220 million prior guidance up to about $395 million for this year, given the significant footprint that Viterra brings in the merchandising and handling business. From a share count -- from a share standpoint, we did repurchase shares during the third quarter, about 6.7 million shares. And so that has an impact on the weighting of our share count for Q3, Q4. And then obviously, as we go forward, we'll remain committed to repurchasing the balance of the shares that we had indicated we would.

The next question comes from Heather Jones with Heather Jones Research.

I think really my only question left based on things that you all are discussing today is on the share count. So I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong, I think when you all did pro forma -- at least pro formas in July, you were putting the pro forma share count at 213 million, and now you're saying about 197 million for the back half and you did 6.7 million during Q3. So am I doing my math right that your guidance for second half share count and EPS assumes a very dramatic step-up in share repo for Q4? Or am I missing something along the way?

Yes. I'm not -- Heather, this is John. I'm not sure the 211 million sounds right to me. I don't have it in front of me. But where we are right now, we were -- for Q3, weighted average about 199 million shares. So I think we were just over 200 million shares coming into the quarter. And so we bought throughout August and September. So it took the weighted average down to 198 million, I believe the number is, and then we'll be closer to 195 million for Q4. So overall weighting about 197 million for the second half.

The next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

Just wanted to -- if you can maybe tell us a little bit about the process you have made so far in terms of like the integration, understanding the business, analysis of like kind of like bottom-up and what Viterra brings to the equation. Clearly, you're breaking out the new softseeds segment, and that's obviously something new for us. So anything you can help us to how we should think about this business going forward from a bottom-up perspective as this seems to be predominantly what's coming in from Viterra. That would be my one question, just to understand that business better.

Sure. I'll start. I would just say progressing very well. Really pleased with how the teams are working together. I think we talked in the past that the cultures were very similar, especially commercially, and that was the area that we couldn't work together until close. So they're really attacking what's a difficult and challenging market environment together as one team, and you've got a real nice global network of assets, customers and information that we can now share and work on these opportunities across the regions, the segments and all the activities that we've got.

And I think those insights are helping us manage the business. Now it's early, right? We're not all the way to bright, but I think off to a good start. And then synergies, we had longer to work on the integration planning and the synergies. We're really early stages there, right? But we're continuing to formalize those plans now and identify and start working on capturing those and really formalizing and sharpening some of the targets going forward.

So the low-hanging fruit, things I got around logistics, freight and really where this is -- remember, this is kind of a vertical merger, so where we've been able to connect origination granularity to our processing or some of the granularity in the distribution to our processing or to the merchandising or flow businesses. There's some low-hanging fruit and the team has been capturing some of those right off the bat. So very, very pleased, good start, lots more to do, lots more upside.

And Ben, maybe I'll just add. When you think about the impact of Viterra on the results, I think where you're going to see the biggest change, softseed is certainly is going to become more meaningful. They have a pretty big softseed footprint and have merchandised a lot more seed than we typically did. So that's why we're breaking out the origination and merchandising portion in soy and softseeds separately where we sell to third parties because it is a significantly higher volume than what we did on our own.

And then on the merchandising side, that's going to grow substantially with the combined company really driven by -- they handle a lot more corn and wheat and barley than we did historically. So you're going to see a big increase there. And then finally, and Greg kind of mentioned it, but on the ocean freight side, we're essentially doubling the chartering capacity that we have globally, and that's going to have a bigger impact on ocean freight results.

The next question comes from Salvator Tiano with Bank of America.

I just want to ask specifically about how you treat depreciation in the adjusted EPS here. Specifically, was there a significant write-up of assets of PP&E? And is this extra depreciation included in your adjusted EPS construct now? Or are you taking out that step-up?

Yes. This is John. Salvator, we are still in the finalization, obviously, of our opening balance sheet and the step-up of results. But we will have a step-up in the depreciation. That's reflected in the numbers for the second half forecast. It's going to be our overall depreciation for the back half of the year -- I'm sorry, on a full year basis for Bunge and a half year for Viterra is going to be about $700 million.

That does include some step-up in there, and we'll provide more details on the third quarter call as we kind of finalize some of our opening balance sheet items where we expect that to be. A little bit of shuffling still around as we're doing final analysis. But there is a step-up assumed at this point, we have that baked into the forecast for the second half.

The next question comes from Steven Haynes with Morgan Stanley.

I guess in terms of maybe what's left to discuss, just -- I don't know if you're going to be able to talk towards this, but can you help us think a bit about how the EBIT split might look in the third and fourth quarter kind of by segment? And then also anything you can provide in terms of the weighting between the 2? I know you're not providing much on forward look, but just might be helpful to understand, given that Viterra is going to bring a larger merchandising in softseed versus what the historical data you provided, just kind of how that might look in the back half as it relates to your updated guidance.

Yes. I think, Steven, we'll probably provide more details on the upcoming call. But if you want to just think about calendarization between Q3 and Q4, as we provided second half guidance, we're thinking about 55-45 weighting of Q3 and Q4 from a results standpoint. And then we'll obviously go through a lot more of the drivers and details as we get into the call in 3 weeks.

The next question comes from Andrew Strelzik with BMO.

I was hoping that you could help us think about the typical kind of first half, back half cadence of profits for Viterra. And I guess kind of what I'm trying to think through is, is it fair to take the $400 million to $425 million back half and annualize that and start to think about that as kind of a starting point to build for next year? Or just as we kind of have to work through our models now, is that not the right way to approach it?

Yes. I think it's -- Andrew, it's -- we'll think more about that as we get into the Q3 call. And I think certainly, it reflects good performance on the part of both businesses, certainly better on the Viterra side than maybe what you had seen previously. So we're -- there's a lot of moving pieces right now. As you know, biofuel policy is notwithstanding that and trade issues and things, we're really trying to navigate how we feel about next year. And we really don't plan to provide specific guidance on '26 until we get into the first of the year. But on the upcoming call, we'll give a sense of how we feel like this forecast is from a sustainable standpoint, I should think about the second half going forward.

The next question comes from Pooran Sharma with Stephens.

And just sticking to kind of the mechanics. Just wondering, in terms of the $7.30 to $7.60 EPS guidance, I was wanting to dive into that a little bit and understand how much are you guys integrated? Is this $730 million to $760 million, does that forecast -- does it -- are you guys like fully integrated kind of operating as one? Or is this kind of still more of like a top-down blend of 2 separate plants? Just wanted to understand where you are kind of in your integration process.

Yes. Yes. Thanks for the question. We really -- the $730 million to $760 million reflects almost no synergy capture at this point from a cost standpoint. We're obviously moving along well on integration. I think the commercial teams are working well together, and Greg can touch on that in a second. But from a cost perspective, we're still working through org design and still working through a lot of that.

We've maybe captured some modest small cost savings so far. We obviously have pretty big plans for the first half and really all of '26. That's where a big -- we're going to see a big move in the cost structure, hopefully, and that's our plan. This first 6 months is really about stabilization and getting our feet on the ground. So the $730 million to $760 million reflects virtually no cost savings and synergy capture on the cost side. And then obviously, on the commercial side, I'll let Greg maybe touch on that.

The fact here for a little bit, right, we're running on multiple systems and processes because that takes some time. You had to get the close before we can start to integrate those. We're off to a good start. We're on the very front end, but the team is doing a great job executing against those plans. So from that standpoint, it's a little more cumbersome and you need a few more people to execute it. Now as far as working as one team, we're absolutely going to market to our consuming customers with one voice and with coordination as one company. And we're also going to mark to our farmer customers on the origination side as one company and with one voice.

So the commercial teams are working as one company, even though they're having to work through a little bit of complexity on multiple systems and processes here until we work through all the integration work. But really, really pleased with the talent that we have got globally, the way people are working together, the way they're communicating and the way that we're staying focused on our external customers off to a very, very good start. These things are -- they're hard to do.

There's lots of details that have to be managed every day. I've had the opportunity to get out and travel here in North America and Europe, and I'll be headed to South America and Asia here soon. And it's just great getting out in the plants and seeing the people and getting in the offices and seeing the people and hearing about the progress that we're making. And there's real excitement out there and real teamwork. So very, very pleased with where we're at and look forward to speaking to you all here in 3 weeks at our Q3 on November 5.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over for any closing remarks.

I'd like to thank you for your time today and for your interest in Bunge. Have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.