Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), will host a meeting with investors and analysts today in Johnston, Iowa at 8:00 am CT / 9:00 am ET. At the meeting, James C. Collins, Jr., Chief Executive Officer-elect of Corteva Agriscience™, and other members of the senior leadership team will review the company’s progress, strategy and key priorities for value creation. The presentations will include an in-depth view of recent product launches, progress toward a best-in-class cost structure, and expectations for pipeline performance. Management will also provide an update on the company’s standalone financials in preparation for the intended separation from DowDuPont on June 1, 2019.
“As we rapidly approach our launch as an independent pure-play agriculture company, we are confident our competitive advantages put us on a solid path to deliver above-market growth,” said Jim Collins. “Our integrated offering is powered by an industry-leading R&D engine and close customer relationships gained through our unique routes-to-market – enabling Corteva to deliver new, innovative products to meet the evolving needs of farmers. Combining innovation-driven sales growth with our relentless focus on driving attractive returns on our investments, a competitive cost structure and improving ROIC, we will enhance value for shareholders.”
In addition to Collins, presentations will include remarks from Greg Friedman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer-elect; Rajan Gajaria, Executive Vice President, Business Platforms; Tim Glenn, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; Neal Gutterson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer; Debra King, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, as well as other members of the Corteva Agriscience senior leadership team.
For those in attendance, the event will also include a tour of the onsite innovation facilities, spotlighting plant breeding, transgenic trait development, seed applied technology and the company’s expanding digital capabilities.
“By capitalizing on our strengths, including our disciplined innovation investment approach and differentiated distribution, and optimizing our capital allocation - we will enable growth and improved ROIC, while creating shareholder value,” said Greg Friedman. “Our priorities include maintaining financial flexibility to support seasonal working capital, growing cash flow in a disciplined manner while investing in innovation, delivering on merger cost synergies and driving productivity improvements, and returning capital to shareholders through a competitive dividend and share repurchases.”
Division Guidance
At the meeting, Corteva Agriscience will also reaffirm financial guidance for the full year 2019. Consistent with the guidance provided on May 2 with DowDuPont’s first quarter results, the DowDuPont Agriculture division guided full year guidance of operating EBITDA of about $2.8 billion. Sales are expected to be flat with organic sales[1] up low single digits percent. The division expects to overcome the first half decline through the realization of new product launches, price opportunities on high demand products, accelerated cost synergy delivery, and incremental productivity opportunities - resulting in an improvement in second half performance versus prior year.
Standalone Guidance
As part of an update on standalone financials, Greg Friedman will provide its full-year 2019 operating EBITDA[2] guidance on a standalone basis. As previously communicated, Corteva Agriscience projects dividends of $400 Million with increases over time. Immediately following the spin, the new board is anticipated to approve a share repurchase authorization consistent with a commitment to return excess capital to shareholders.
1 Organic sales includes price and volume growth, excluding currency and portfolio impacts.
Division Operating EBITDA is defined as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and excludes significant items and exchange gains/losses"
2 Corteva Operating EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure. See herein for further discussion.