Benjamin Klieve: Got it. No, that makes sense. Yes, nothing is easy, and we’ll look forward to updates here in coming quarters on all those initiatives. Turning to the quarter, one kind of very specific question in the Trade group. I’m wondering if you can isolate the impact of the international business that you are — that you backed away from for geopolitical purposes. Can you just kind of talk about maybe the magnitude of the EBITDA contributions for that business last year and kind of the outlook for reentering that — those markets here in later part of this year?
William Krueger: Yes, I’ll take that one. The change year-on-year is somewhere in that $5 million to $10 million EBITDA range. And our focus is on making sure that there is ample U.S. dollar liquidity in the markets that we’re supplying. And so we feel like it’s in the best interest of the company and the shareholders to wait until some of that liquidity comes back before pursuing more opportunities. We have an ongoing business. The business is operating well today. We’re just being very focused on the risks that we’re willing to take.
Patrick Bowe: And maybe I could add to that, Ben. I think it’s about just a shift of focus within geographies, right? So our [ Luzon ] office has been very successful. We set up operations in Romania that have gone very well for us from an origin standpoint. Just with the challenges in the Black Sea and Red Sea, we kind of want to go slow. As you know, last year, we mentioned we had some currency struggles with Egypt, so we want to get that back under control. So we’d rather just be very prudent with our approach to risk there, but we still think that is an opportunity for growth, especially long-term growth for us.
Benjamin Klieve: Got it. No, that makes sense. Very good. And then lastly, curious if you can elaborate a bit on your outlook here for kind of first half results out of the N&I segment. Last year, I know there was kind of a big seasonality shift from Q1 into Q2. Can you kind of frame the kind of first half expectations for that segment from last year to this year?
Brian Valentine: Yes, Ben, I can do that, certainly. I think as you said, right now is kind of peak season for that business. Second quarter is really tends to be the strongest quarter for our Nutrient and Industrial business. And so when we look at the entire first half year-over-year, I would probably expect it to be flat year-over-year to maybe down slightly. I think as we speak, we’re probably seeing a little bit lower volumes, but higher margins year-on-year.
Operator: And our next question comes from Scott Fortune with ROTH MKM.
Scott Fortune: Just want to follow up a little bit on the Nutrient side. We’ve covered, obviously, the Renewables, but just kind of the investments or CapEx that you’re looking on in the Nutrient and Industrial side. And are you looking to kind of continue to expand the pet food niche that you’ve built out nicely from that standpoint?
Patrick Bowe: Yes. Again, Scott, welcome to the call. Thank you for being on with us today. Yes, we mentioned we added a small bolt-on acquisition in our turf business on the East Coast, Reed and Perrine in New Jersey. That’s a geography in the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic we hadn’t addressed before. So that’s a nice geographic move for us. We’ll look at those opportunities. It’s really geography by geography. And I think the overall market of M&A, and I can’t speak to all industries, but it feels like things are a little bit better. We’re seeing more things pop up coming from bankers and in the pipeline in general. I don’t know if that’s a higher interest rate environment or whatever. But I think there’s going to be some opportunities for us to deploy capital wisely.
We want those to be within our strategies and fit right within our core business. One of those plays, as you mentioned, was pet food and specialty food ingredients that we’ve been able to grow the last couple of years. Again, those have been more small to midsized bolt-on acquisitions. And those tend to work well for us. We’ve been doing some additions of technology and equipment in our plants to support customers. That’s a real plus as well as investments we’re going to be making in carbon sequestration we talked about in ethanol. So there’s a good opportunity for growth that fits within our strategy.
Brian Valentine: Yes. Scott, this is Brian. Just to clarify a little bit. I know you had asked specifically about Nutrient and Industrial. That business, if I think about our growth capital, that business will probably allocate, call it, $10 million to $15 million of growth capital to that segment this year. Pat mentioned, a lot of those projects get into automation and improvements in our plants, things that maybe didn’t pencil a few years ago that now do make good sense. And just to clarify one further — the pet food ingredient business is also a place that we’re allocating capital. That actually rolls up under our Trade segment. And we have done a couple of acquisitions in that space with ACJ and Bridge over the past 12 to 18 months. So just wanted to clarify that as well.
Scott Fortune: Got it. That’s helpful. And just kind of a follow-up. So that kind of puts you — you’re committed to achieving your long-term target here, $475 million of ’25. And the bridge is coming from internal investments and expansion kind of M&A. It sounds like, Pat, you’re seeing kind of the M&A side potentially improving in this coming environment, but just kind of step us through bridging to get there. You mentioned a lot of initiatives, but just kind of the priorities of those initiatives [ just to ] meet those targets.
Brian Valentine: Yes. I can take a first shot at that, and then certainly, Pat and Bill can chime in. And we’ve talked previously on — you’re right. To achieve that $475 million EBITDA run rate target by the end of ’25, certainly we’ll require M&A. We’ve said previously that we expect it to be about 50-50. We are seeing a lot of — a lot more M&A activity in our pipeline. And so we’re continuing to evaluate those closely. I would say the good news is they do spread across all of the segments that are close to our core. And so there’s been good activity and hopefully, valuations will come in line so that we’re able to achieve the right return expectations. I would say on the whole, probably a little bit larger portion allocated to renewables followed by trade, followed by fertilizers, how I would kind of think of framing up the big picture there. So I don’t know, Pat, if there’s anything you want to add to that one.
