Nufarm Ltd (NUFMF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the New Farm Limited FY24 results call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Greg Hunt, CEO. Please go ahead. Thank you, Harmony, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the New Farm's financial year 24 results presentation. I'll just take a minute to draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide two and in particular the statement relating to forward-looking statements. Financial year 2024 was a tough one for the crop protection industry. Despite the challenges, New Farm continued to make good progress with our innovation and growth strategies. EBITDA was at the midpoint of the revised guidance that we gave on the 15th of August. We had an outstanding result on net working capital with a 30% reduction on the prior year. This had a similar impact on reducing debt. We finished the year with net debt of $635 million, which was 25% below the prior year. Net leverage was two times EBITDA, which is a very strong performance given our reduced earnings. Applying our capital management principles, there will be no final dividend for financial year 24. As we move into 2025, we'll continue to tightly manage costs and our balance sheet. We have clear targets to reduce costs and working capital. We will increase our focus on improving our return on funds employed. However, we will keep investing in our growth platforms. During the year, we faced competitive pricing as the industry moved volume and reduced inventory, particularly in North America. Demand remained healthy and we sold more produ...