Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ:BIOX) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Enrique Lopez Lecube: Yes, yes. I think that that is to some degree related to what Federico mentioned about the strategy in HB4. Remember that when we came out of the droughts in Q2, so when we reported Q2 in February, we anticipated that we were going to see high inventory levels and high accounts receivable levels most than anything coming from Argentina because we had decided to hold hands with our distributors. I think that we’re still waiting for that to be normalized. It might take an extra quarter or two, but I think that you shouldn’t see sort of like a trend line or an increase in that, but rather stability and then going down. That’s the plan, and that’s what we’re hoping for as profitability in Argentina for farmers improves, and we can start sort of like a cashing back part of the cash that we put out in the street to back up distributors, but it’s mostly related to accounts receivables if you’re referring to working capital.

Inventory-wise, I think that you’re going to see a more streamlined inventory number in the coming quarters, because part of that was also related to the fact that we had prepared micro-beaded fertilizers inventories for what was supposed to be a fantastic season in Q2 last year, which didn’t materialize. So part of the outflows micro-beaded fertilizers that we’re having now is historical inventories. Accounts receivables should go down in the next couple of quarters, and inventories should as well get back to normal levels in the next couple of quarters.

Brian Wright: Great. Is there a way, because the go-to-market model is changing to the seed multiplier route, but is there a way to think about effective hectare capacity by expanding through this route? I imagine it’s a lot larger than the hectares via the direct route, but any way to help us kind of think about that from a quantification standpoint?

Federico Trucco: Like in terms of understanding how many hectares might a distributor multiplier address, like as a rule of thumb?

Brian Wright: Yes, the capacity that they’ll be able to fill, I guess.

Federico Trucco: Look, I think a general rule of thumb is that these multipliers can actually do between 20,000 to 50,000 hectares each. Obviously, 20,000 being the smallest and most frequent types, and 50,000, those are kind of the outperformers. Of the 26 multipliers that we have on-boarded, I would say the majority, if you want to do an average, there’s more like 30,000 hectares each. Instead of 50,000, but there are some that can do the 50,000. That’s more or less the type of reach we expect them to give us, but obviously not initially 100% HB4. Also, they will be significant HB4 the first year, but we expect for them to be almost 100% HB4 or mostly HB4 will take probably two to three years, and we will continue to add multipliers.

Brian Wright: Great, great perfect. Thank you so much for that clarification. Another one, and then one more after that, and then I’m done. You talked about doubling the European biological business. Can you help us out on maybe quantification of the current size of that business?

Federico Trucco: Look, today, I think the Lumidapt or the UBP relationship we have with Corteva is probably close to $10 million on an annual basis, and obviously, that is twice what it was last year and will continue to grow. We think that the MBI-306 opportunity will double that potential growth that we currently have with the UBP on a standalone consideration. Is that good enough?

Brian Wright: Oh, that’s perfect. And then just last one is with the change to the dollar for the functional currencies, are there any legacy impacts for currency evaluations to be kind enough to know in inflation in Argentina and how that’s impacted at all?