Monsanto Outlines Growth Strategy to European Investors

13/11/06 Monsanto has a unique window of opportunity to build on its industry leading position and capitalize on emerging growth opportunities between now and the end of the decade, company executives have told European investors.

The company’s remarks came as part of an investor meeting held in London, which featured presentations by Hugh Grant, chairman, president and chief executive officer; Robb Fraley, executive vice president and chief technology officer; and Terry Crews, executive vice president and chief financial officer.

At the event, Monsanto’s management team outlined key factors expected to drive the company’s growth through 2010 and confirmed its earnings per share (EPS) and free cash flow guidance for fiscal-year 2007.

“The leadership we enjoy today is not accidental,” said Grant.  “It represents our strategic decision to orient our business around our seeds and traits platform, and then passionately execute against that strategy literally farm-by-farm and field-by-field.

“While our early investment gave us a head start, it is our performance – backed by the industry’s leading R&D pipeline, and coupled with our principles of relentless innovation, commercial execution and delivery against our commitments – that will help us build on our leadership in the years ahead,” said Grant.

Monsanto’s management team has identified six elements which will contribute to the growth of the company’s seeds and traits business between now and 2010. These include: its U.S. and ex-U.S. corn seeds and traits business; its international traits business; its cotton business; its Seminis fruit and vegetable seed business; and its R&D pipeline.

By executing its strategy against these six contributors, Monsanto will not only be able to deliver value to its farmer customers, but expects to grow the profitability of the business, increasing gross profit as a percent of sales from 48 percent today, to a target of 51 to 53 percent by the end of the decade, Grant said.

In outlining the six factors that would drive the company’s gross-profit growth through the end of the decade, Monsanto’s management team highlighted a number of opportunities and new developments, including:

• Monsanto’s U.S. corn seed and trait market continues to serve as a centerpiece of growth. With the continued market share growth of Monsanto’s national DEKALB and Asgrow corn seed brands and increased adoption of Monsanto biotech traits, the U.S. corn market is a margin-rich business with opportunity for expansion. Notably, Monsanto continues to expect that its national seed brands can continue to grow at the rate of 1 to 2 share points per year through the end of the decade. The company projects a potential U.S. trait market of approximately 150 million trait acres, which creates the opportunity to effectively double trait penetration by 2010.

• Monsanto’s breeding pipeline is developing better seed that outyields competitive offerings. Preliminary harvest results from 2006 testing indicated that Monsanto’s DEKALB branded seed corn demonstrated an 11-bushel-acre yield advantage when compared with competitive offerings. The preliminary results, which were realized in the 110-day relative maturity planting zone, highlight the benefit that Monsanto’s seed products are delivering to farmers in the Central Corn Belt, an area which generates more than one-third of the nation’s grain production. 

• The R&D pipeline is set to deliver further value, reflected in a new listing of “Top 10” projects.  Complementing the “High-Impact Technologies” (HITs) the company established in fiscal year 2006, Monsanto unveiled a top-10 listing of products in its R&D pipeline, reflecting the products in development that are poised to deliver the most value based on factors such as crop size, market need, uniqueness of the technology, and the ability to establish new platforms for future traits.

• R&D “HIT” projects are on track and have the company geared up for larger-acre launches with greater financial benefit to the company. The progress of the HIT projects is reinforced by 2006 testing, where Monsanto tested its Roundup RReady2Yield soybean technology with more than 45 trials, spanning 25 locations on more than 11,000 lines. During 2006, the company also conducted more than 85,000 drought test plots to better assess its drought-tolerant technology and its benefits for corn, cotton and soybean farmers.

• The tools of molecular breeding will be able to improve the Seminis vegetable seed platform and its offerings. Using the technology and tools that were first applied to Monsanto’s core row crop business, scientists are actively developing genetic maps and molecular markers for nine key vegetable crops. With the ongoing work, Monsanto expects to develop approximately 1,000 molecular markers for each crop by the end of the decade – or a total of 9,000 markers that can be used for advanced breeding.

• The strong business performance, underpinned by financial discipline, creates a platform for growth and a greater opportunity to return value to shareowners.  In the past three fiscal years, Monsanto returned three-quarters of free cash generated to shareowners, either directly through share repurchases and dividends, or by re-investing in the growth of the business. 

In the final presentation of the day, Crews reviewed the company’s key financial projections. He underscored the opportunity created by a company uniquely positioned for leadership in the seeds-and-traits segment of the agricultural industry. Crews noted that the company continues to expect that its full-year 2007 EPS guidance, both on a reported and ongoing basis, is expected to be in the range of $1.50 to $1.57.

“At Monsanto, guidance is a commitment, not an aspiration,” said Crews.  “Our projected 15 to 20 percent growth rate for ongoing EPS in 2007 reflects our confidence in the substantial organic growth potential of our seeds and traits, even in a dynamic agricultural market.

“If we accomplish our objectives over the mid-term, we have a unique window of opportunity to extend our leadership and reward our shareowners for their investment in our company.”

Crews also underscored that the company still expects guidance for free cash flow for fiscal year 2007 will be in the range of $875 million to $950 million. The company expects net cash provided by operating activities to be in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, and net cash required by investing activities to be approximately $500 million for fiscal year 2007.