Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brent Norwood: Hey, Seth, thanks for the question. As it relates to Small Ag & Turf, it’s certainly a structurally sounder business today than we went back to prior cycles. As you think about and I’ll talk a little bit more about some of the margin puts and takes there. Let me answer your question on inventory first. So as it relates to inventory for Small Ag & Turf, I know there’s been a lot of focus on what I would call the small end of Small Ag & Turf, so like the under 40-horsepower category of compact utility tractors. I think we’ve seen the industry level out or even come down a little bit here recently. So it does appear that maybe we’re kind of past that elevated — or we’re in the early stages of getting past those elevated inventory levels on the compact utility tractor side.

But the bulk of that business is really revolves around midsized tractors that are going into dairy and livestock operations, hay and forage operations or high-value crops. And I think we’re probably closer to target level inventory there. So we don’t see quite the abundance of inventory for those categories of machines. And so, we’re also going to see just some seasonality impact just as it relates to the rest of the year from a margin perspective. We’ll do a factory shutdown in Monheim, which is our single source location for those 6 Series tractors, those mid-series tractors that makes up a significant portion of the Small Ag & Turf revenue and margin for that matter. Going forward though, from a margin perspective, I think what you’ll see, particularly on those midsized tractors is higher levels of technology that is going to be leveraged from Production & Precision Ag. I would say if you went back to prior years, you wouldn’t see a lot of technology that gets leverage from Production & Precision Ag into Small Ag & Turf, but you’re going to see more of that as our customers, particularly in like high-value crop production systems, they’re demanding solutions like autonomy and electrification.

And so that’s going to be an opportunity to, I think, further buttress the margin profile that we’ve achieved this year and extend that into years to come.

Josh Jepsen: Yes. Seth, one last thing I would add is just the deep geographic diversity of Small Ag and Turf. So it’s much broader in terms of global coverage, and we’re seeing performance really strong across the globe. And to Brent’s point, on driving technology, we’re seeing technology be driven into utility tractors in India, leveraging telematics and bringing connectivity to the farm there. So there’s a lot of activity that we see that is going to both create customer value and also drive a different business in Small Ag & Turf than you’ve seen in the past. So, thank you.

Seth Weber: All right. Thanks, guys.

Brent Norwood: So, that concludes today’s call. We appreciate everyone’s time, and thank you for joining us today.

Operator: This conference has concluded. Again, thank you for your participation. You may please disconnect at this time.

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