FMC Corporation (NYSE:FMC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Arun Viswanathan: All right, thanks for that clarification. And then just on the supply chain itself, what are some of the steps that you can take to get better intelligence of inventory levels, whether it be at the distributor level or even as maybe has happened in the last year at the farmer level? Is there further intelligence you can get through your grower network or distributor network? And do you feel like there’s accurate communication about those inventory levels? So what’s so different around this time that the magnitude of destocking is just so much more pronounced? Thanks.

Mark Douglas: Yes, listen, it’s a very, very fragmented structure in this industry. It is very difficult at the grower level to understand what people are holding when you have millions of farmers around the world. We obviously talk to our big distributors and partners around the world and they were caught out by this. So I think the industry has a lot to learn in terms of how much inventory is set out there. We are going to be doing some things internally ourselves. I don’t want to say what they are, to try and aid our demand forecast accuracy and understanding what inventory is out there. But I think we have to recognize it’s never going to be 100% accurate. It is just too fragmented. But there are things that we’ve learned over the last 12 months that we can apply to our thinking, especially as we’re planning our supply chain activities.

So yes, there are learnings, some of them I want to keep for ourselves. But generally speaking, I think the industry does have to do a better job of. communicating where inventory sits at any point of that value chain.

Operator: Our final question today comes from Adam Samuelson of Goldman Sachs.

Adam Samuelson: Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone. It’s a lot of ground cover today. I know that there’s going to be a lot more detail on some of these topics at the Investor Day. But let’s hope and maybe just step back and I understand there’s a lot of channel intelligence. Refresh, it’s going to happen on your end as well. As you’re thinking about 2024, do you think it’s 2020, 2021 kind of shipments that are a more appropriate baseline for future growth or kind of cumulatively where do you think the inventory build both in your distribution channel and at your — at the farm customers actually built up so that we can think about a proper base off which to grow longer term.

Mark Douglas: Yes. I think for us, as we just talked about, I think we reset as we go through Q4, Q1, much more balancing Q2. That’s where you grow from, industry typically grows at 3%-ish can be zero can be a little more. Think of that as sort of the second half move. You’re getting more normal growth patterns. You also have to remember that inventory doesn’t sit still at any one point of this value chain. It can move from grow a back to retail and retail back to distribution. So any one point in time, inventory looks different. That’s another complicating factor. Having said all of that, we expect this to reset as we go through the first half of next year predominantly Q1. Second half of the year will be much, should be much more normal in terms of growth and inventory management. That’s how we see it.

Zack Zaki: Yes. All right. I’m sorry we don’t have time for a follow up. I do appreciate the questions. Thank you. That’s all the time we have for the call.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.

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