Archer-Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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The full earnings call is available at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/821216419
Summary
Archer-Daniels Midland reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.71 and total segment operating profit of $764 million for Q1 2026, with a trailing fourth quarter adjusted ROIC of 6.4%.
The company raised its full year adjusted EPS guidance range to $4.15 to $4.70, from a previous range of $3.60 to $4, citing a constructive margin environment in crushing and ethanol businesses.
Strategic initiatives include reducing manufacturing and transaction costs, investing in growth platforms, and leveraging AI to enhance efficiency. The company achieved higher North American export activity and captured margin opportunities in various subsegments.
Operational highlights included record global crush volumes, increased North American export activity, and strong soybean meal sales. The Decatur east plant and animal nutrition operations showed substantial progress.
Management noted the positive impact of renewable volume obligations on corn and soy markets, and the company is targeting high-growth opportunities, particularly in advanced nutrition and biosolutions.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Welcome to the first quarter of 2026 earnings conference call for ADM. Our prepared remarks today will be led by Juan Luciano, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Manish Patilwala, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have prepared presentation slides to supplement our remarks on the call today which are posted to the Investor Relations section of the ADM website and through the link to our webcast. Some of our comments and materials may constitute forward looking statements that reflect management's current views and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance and financial results. These statements and materials are based on many assumptions and factors that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties. ADM has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning assumptions and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in this presentation and the materials. Unless otherwise required by law, ADM assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements due to new information or future events. In addition, during today's call we will refer to certain non GAAP or adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings press release and presentation slides which can be found in the Investor Relations section of the of the ADM website. I will now turn the call over
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
to Juan. Thank you, Kate. Hello, and welcome to all who have joined the call. Please turn to Slide 4 where we have outlined this quarter's performance highlights. Today, ADM reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.71 and total segment operating profit of $764 million for the first quarter of 2026. Our trailing fourth quarter adjusted ROIC was 6.4% and cash flow from operations before working capital changes was $442 million for the quarter. Operating performance was robust during the quarter as our team advanced our company priorities and our crushing and ethanol businesses benefited from an increasingly constructive commodity and margin environment. In particular, soybean crush and ethanol margins strengthened meaningfully as the market anticipated the finalization of renewable volume obligations for 2026 and 2027, which the EPA published on March 27. We commend the Administration and the EPA for advancing a renewable volume obligation that strengthens markets for American farmers and enhances America's energy security. The RBO drives demand for corn, soy and other domestic feedstocks and it supports a reliable domestic fuel supply chain that offers consumers dependable choices in their daily lives. I also want to thank our team for delivering on our plan in a complex and rapidly changing environment based on our expectation that we will continue to successfully advance our priorities throughout the remainder of the year. Combined with the expectation that the constructive margin environment we are in continues, we are raising our earnings guidance range for 2026. Our full year adjusted EPA's guidance range is now $4.15 to $4.70, up from our previous range of $3.60 to $4. Please turn to Slide 5 as we look at our strategic priorities for 2026, we remain focused on continuing to reduce our manufacturing and transaction costs, generating strong cash flows, investing in our growth platforms, and further developing and expanding our deep bench of talent to support our strategic priorities. Based on these priorities, we achieved notable progress in a number of areas during the first quarter. Here are several highlights. Our ag services business achieved higher North American export activity, which included increased shipments of soybeans and sorghum to China and the continuation of a strong corn export program. We demonstrated the ability to capture underlying margin opportunities in crushing and refined products and other subsegments. We also delivered strong soybean meal sales during the quarter driven by robust global consumption. Our team capitalized on the constructive margin environment for ethanol with strengthening ethanol margins more than offsetting the continuous softness in starches and sweeteners volumes and our nutrition business achieved higher flavor sales and we're seeing momentum built around natural colors and flavors. Also, we're seeing the benefits of our strategic portfolio actions taking hold from a manufacturing standpoint. We made solid strides in increasing throughput and decreasing unplanned downtime across our production footprint. During the first quarter. Our team delivered strong global crush volumes with oilseeds tonnage increasing 2% compared to the previous prior year quarter and we achieved the best overall global site crash production on record for nutrition. The team continued to improve operational execution and we are seeing substantial progress with the continued recovery of our Decatur East plant and animal nutrition operations as we look ahead. We're also targeting a meaningful reduction in transaction costs across our global footprint, including further automation and use of AI in our workflows to reduce manual touch points, errors and cycle times. These initiatives also extend to our supply chain management and freight and logistic networks. We continue to pursue high growth opportunities that are designed to generate enduring returns. We recently created a new senior Innovation and Growth leadership role responsible for accelerating projects in this area across the enterprise. A number of the initiatives underway are already generating revenue and we are encouraged by the progress we are making. I'll talk more about this on the next slide. All of this is bolstered by the development we are doing around our workforce talent and capabilities. We're strategically focused on making sure we have the right people and skills for both our business needs today and for the future. For example, we recently established the ADM Capability Center in India to build and maintain deep technical and functional experience in priority areas. In summary, our team is executing well against our plan and we're taking advantage of market opportunities while consistently strengthening the performance of our operations. Looking through to the rest of 2026, we have clear priorities that are centered around ensuring we have the right talent and capabilities in place to drive growth, margin expansion and cash flow while remaining steadfast in our discipline around cost management and capital allocation. And to that end, we remain committed to returning value to our shareholders with the dividend we paid in first quarter representing our 377th consecutive quarterly dividend. Please turn to slide 6. We're making disciplined investments today in the platforms that will drive our growth for tomorrow. Our next wave of value creation is grounded in five key pathways that expand both near term opportunities already contributing to growth today, as well as long term initiatives that will continue to scale over time. Importantly, these are areas where we understand the markets and the customer needs and where we believe we are well positioned to win. I'll take a few moments now to discuss our growth pathways in a little more detail. Starting with advanced nutrition, we are developing innovative solutions as customers shift from artificial to natural ingredients, particularly in colors and flavors. In North America, we're expanding both capabilities and capacity to meet growing demand for healthier products that deliver on appearance, texture and taste within functional health. We continue to build on our leadership in digestive and metabolic health and immune support with a growing pipeline of solutions targeting stress, mood and sleep. For biosolutions, our initiatives are centered on valorization or the unlocking of new market for our existing products, essentially doing more with what we already produce. A concrete example of this is a starch based component we developed for fabric softeners for which we were recognized earlier this year with the Best Innovation Contributor Award by Henkel Consumer Brands. In precision fermentation, we see significant opportunities at the intersection of biology and engineering. Advances in technology are enhancing the efficiency and scalability of our existing fermentation assets and we're expanding our portfolio of cleaner, simpler and more sustainable solutions. For example, during the quarter in animal nutrition we successfully completed trial for a scalable animal free protein for pet food and in the human nutrition space we progressed the development of a novel enzyme with widespread functionality in food applications in decarbonization we are leveraging our existing carbon capture and storage footprint to develop a broader portfolio of solutions. This includes serving customers with high purity CO2 needs, expanding renewable natural gas operations, and advancing pathways to convert ethanol into sustainable aviation fuels. During the first quarter alone, we sequestered approximately 300,000 metric tons of CO2, a milestone that underscores our leadership in this space. Taken together, these platforms represent a compelling set of value creation opportunities that leverage our core business and provide meaningful expansion into new markets for years to come. With that, let me hand it over to Mohnish to share a deeper dive into our first quarter financials and full year outlook.
Mohnish Patilwala
Thank you Juan and I wish you all a very good morning. Please turn to Slide 7 as Our segment operating profit for the first quarter of 2026 was $273 million, down 34% compared to the prior year quarter. Included in the first quarter of 2026 is approximately $275 million of net negative mark to market and timing impacts, of which roughly 70% were attributable to the crushing subsegment and the remaining balance was 2/3 attributable to refined products and other and 1/3 attributable to ag services. In the prior year quarter. The net negative impacts of approximately $22 million were mainly related to ag services. The ag services subsegment in the current quarter generated operating profit of $200 million, representing an increase of 26% compared to the prior year quarter. The increase was driven primarily by higher export activity in North America, which was supported by increased trade with China and a strong corn export program. Additionally, prior year quarter results were pressured by certain export duties for the crushing subsegment. We reported an operating loss of $79 million for the quarter, which represents a decrease of $126 million from the prior year quarter. The decrease was driven by net negative mark to market and timing impacts. The team executed well during the first quarter of 2026 with plant productivity improving compared to the prior year quarter. Additionally, soybean meal sales remained strong throughout the quarter as a result of strong global demand for the refined products and other subsegment. Operating profit was $86 million, down 36% compared to the prior year quarter, primarily driven by net negative mark to market and timing impact. Equity earnings from our investment in Wilmar were $66 million for the quarter, down 8% compared to the prior year quarter. Turning now to Slide 8 for the first quarter, carbohydrate solutions segment operating profit was $356 million, representing an increase of 48% compared to the prior year quarter. The period over period increase was primarily a result of strengthening ethanol margins supported by effective risk management and policy incentives. In the starches and sweeteners subsegment operating profit was $229 million, representing an increase of 11% compared to the prior year quarter. The increase was driven by stronger results from ethanol in our corn wet milling plants in North America and and was partially offset by lower global liquid sweeteners and starches volumes and margins due to similar trends to what we saw last year in the Vantage corn processor subsegment operating profit was $127 million, representing a $94 million increase from prior year quarter. ADM's corn dry milling ethanol operations benefited from strengthening ethanol margins supported by effective risk management and policy incentives. Overall, base ethanol EBITDA margins for the quarter were higher both sequentially and compared to the prior quarter. Now turning to Slide 9 for Nutrition segment revenues in the first quarter were $1.8 billion, down 1% compared to the prior year quarter. Human Nutrition revenue increased by 3% year over year, driven primarily by higher flavor sales and inclusive of foreign exchange gains. Animal Nutrition revenue decreased by 5% year over year with the decrease primarily attributable to our previously disclosed portfolio exit and the formation of the animal feed joint venture with Altech, which was partially offset by foreign exchange gains. Nutrition segment operating profit was $135 million for the first first quarter, representing an increase of 42% compared to the prior year quarter. Human nutrition operating profit was $104 million, up 39% compared to the prior year quarter as a result of higher flavor sales and foreign exchange gains as well as the continued recovery of the Decatur East Plant. Animal nutrition operating profit was $31 million for the quarter, up 55% compared to the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily attributable to benefits associated with strategic portfolio and cost optimization actions taken over the last year, foreign exchange gains and the increased focus on higher margin product offerings. Corporate and other businesses contribution to operating profit was lower compared to the prior quarter, driven primarily by higher claim settlements in other business, which were partially offset by lower corporate function costs. Turning now to Slide 10 for the first quarter of the year, ADM generated cash flow from operations before working capital of approximately $442 million, approximately flat relative to the prior year quarter. We continue to be very disciplined in the areas in which we Invest. During the first quarter of 2026 we invested $194 million and maintain our expectations of full year 2026 CapEx being in the range of 1.3 to $1.5 billion. During the quarter, we distributed $254 million in dividends, marking our 377th consecutive quarter of paying a dividend. And lastly, our net leverage ratio at March 31 was 2.2 times, which is higher than the previous quarter. However, this is generally in line with our expectations given the normal seasonality of our business and the impact of higher commodity prices. Our year end net leverage ratio expectations remain at approximately 2 times. Now on to Slide 11 where we have provided details on our updated 2026 outlook. Earlier today, as Juan mentioned, we raised our current outlook for 2026 adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15 to $4.70, up from the previous range of $3.60 to $4.25. There are two main drivers to our guidance range. First, the expectation that our team will continue to solidly execute against our plan and for the remainder of the year and second, the expectation that the improved margin environment for crushing and ethanol businesses will continue. Overall, our guidance range is underpinned by several Factors in ASNO first quarter 2026 results include approximately $275 million of net negative mark to market and timing impact. Negative mark to market and timing impacts are the result of increasing commodity prices and in this case signal improving underlying market conditions for us. As a reminder, the final impact of the mark to market and timing impacts will be realized when the underlying inventory, forward contracts and futures and foreign currency contracts are executed. Based on that, the majority of the $275 million of net negative mark to market and timing impacts reported in the first quarter are forecasted to reverse in the second quarter. The remaining impacts are forecasted to reverse during the second half of this year. As a reminder, we cannot and do not estimate new mark to market and timing impacts in our guidance and there could still be additional mark to market and timing impacts in future reporting periods. In ag services, we are assuming that China will resume a normalized buying pattern for North American soybeans. For carb solutions, we expect strength in ethanol margins supported by policy incentives will continue to more than offset softness in starches and sweeteners as the same consumer behavior trends we experienced in 2025 continue to pressure SNS volumes and margins. Expectations for year over year growth in nutrition remain intact with operating profit increasing primarily as a result of higher flavor sales, continued recovery in Decatur east, and margin expansion in animal nutrition. As we maintain our focus on higher margin product lines and ongoing cost optimization initiatives, we will continue to closely monitor external factors including consumer trends, energy costs, supply chain dislocations along with global trade and tariff dynamics, foreign exchange and ethanol industry development throughout the balance of the year. We also are progressing the cost savings program we launched last year and remain on track to achieve our targeted aggregate cost savings of 500 million to 750 million over the three to five year period which commenced in 2025. In summary, Q1 presented a dynamic market environment characterized by significant events that created challenges but also created opportunities and we were well positioned to capitalize on the environment as evidenced by the underlying margins across our ag services and oilseeds businesses and and our ethanol operations. Beyond that, we continue to execute well in our nutrition business, particularly in our Flavors product line. In closing, I would like to recognize our ADM team members for their focus and dedication in executing against both our near term objectives and our strategic priorities. It is their hard work that positions us well in a rapidly shifting global landscape and enabling us to continue delivering on our financial commitments and consistently returning value for our shareholders. With this, I'll hand it back over to Juan. Juan, thanks Mohnish.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
As we look ahead, we're increasingly constructive on our outlook for 2026. Despite the complexity of the global environment, the policy clarity we now have combined with our team's disciplined execution position us well to deliver meaningful growth in 2026. Beyond 2026 we have a clear roadmap for long term value creation that we're actioning, one that leverages both our deep capabilities and the breadth of our operations to create enduring value for years to come. With that, we'll take your questions now. Operator, please open the line. Please open the line.
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one. To raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press Star one again. We will ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality if you are muted locally. Please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q and A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Manav Gupta from ubs. Your line is now open.
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst at UBS)
Good morning team. Congrats on a strong quarter and a guidance race. The beat and race story is always welcome. My quick question here is obviously sir, there's one part where the RVO is helping you, policy formalization is helping you. But there is another part where world is generally short diesel and what we are seeing out there is globally shortages of diesel and one area where us is Somewhat unique is we have this level of higher renewable diesel biodiesel production we can do to meet some of those challenges. And I just wanted your view on it. Are you already seeing out there producers with ideal plants who are not running that hard in 2025 already looking to run much harder in 2026 and how does that benefit? Ad, if you could talk a little bit about that.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yes, thank you. Manav, good morning to you. Listen, I think we said it in the previous quarter what we expected the RVO impact was going to be in the market. The first thing that we said it was going to come in rinse coming up and we saw rins going up by a dollar. Then that created a margin for all these biodiesel plants and renewable diesel plants to come on the stream. That pulled soybean oil demand and that increased crash margin. So crash rates. So if you look at UN margins. So if you look at crash rates for March, we jumped 6%. So crash rates in March for North America run about 10% higher than last year. So I think that it happened in the sequence we expected. Probably it happened with more violence than we expected. It was faster maybe because of pent up demand. We've been waiting for RVOs for a couple of years or maybe the effects of shortages or the perception of shortages given the straightforward issues. But so we see that, we see that, you know, biodiesel traded mostly with RVOs, I would say and we see those plants coming on a stream. So yeah,
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst at UBS)
perfect. My quick follow up is on human nutrition, a very positive Trend. Revenue up 3% but profit up 39% in human nutrition. Can you talk a little bit about that positive trend and what's driving the improvement and profitability in the human nutrition business?
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, the team did a very good job. Of course part of the drivers are in flavors and I think that you know, our they can continue to convert our pipeline and maximizing profitability with product mix, cost management, the normal levers you pull in these cases. I would say you also have to remember that we finally brought the Decatur East plant back. That product has always been loaded as the best quality in the industry and now we are back with our full volume and recovering the position we lost over the last couple of years. So. So I think that very strong performance in both areas in human nutrition and we expect that to continue into Q2. Manav, as per US crypto, we had some foreign exchange gains that help us there too. But operationally the team did very well.
Manav Gupta (Equity Analyst at UBS)
Thank you sir and congrats on a very good quarter.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Manav, thank you for your question. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Toyer from Barclays. Ben, your line is now open.
Ben Toyer (Equity Analyst at Barclays)
Yeah. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. Congrats on a very good first quarter. Maybe just following up on some of the changes to guidance and if you could maybe help us frame a little bit the high versus the low end of it. I mean I guess the market was expecting some sort of a race but just to understand what factors you're kind of like seeing that could drive you to the higher end of that new guidance versus what are the risks that keep you on on the lower side? That would be my main question.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yes. Let me give you a flavor and maybe Mohnish can chime in later. So we underpinning the raising guidance on of course the continued advancement of our priorities as the team continues to execute well and this constructive biofuels environment that we got after the clarity with the RVO's. If you think about the businesses from an AS&O AG services perspective, we expect a normalization of the offtake of soybeans from China and then we continue to expect a constructive biofuel environment going forward. We expect the majority of our, you know, the big market to market. We have 275 million in gaming Q1. We expect the majority of that to come back in Q2. But of course margins as they continue to climb we may generate new mark to market that we don't have the ability to forecast. It's not included in our guidance. From a carb solutions perspective we expect the same dynamics, a little bit of softer sweeteners and starters with a strong ethanol dynamics to continue into Q2 and probably the rest of the year or at least the rest of the summer. And nutrition growth continue to be intact the way we see it forward with strong flavors with still a strong recovery of specialty ingredients given by the Decatur plant being back and animal nutrition continues to on a smaller scale because it's smaller than human continue to put very good year over year improvements based on their improvement plan. But now they are shifting to more specialty products. So all in all we see most of our business doing very very well I think.
Mohnish Patilwala
Ben, you had a question on what risks. Also we are watching if you've seen the script we had laid it out. But just again to reiterate, of course we'll watch all external events that play out but energy cost, foreign exchange, input costs for nutrition, global trade policy, all of those tariffs are all things that we are watching and we'll keep you all posted as we see things evolve.
Ben Toyer (Equity Analyst at Barclays)
Okay, fantastic. And then just quick follow up on the sweetness and starches business within carp solution. Obviously that continued weakness, something we've kind of like seen industry wide. Are there any specific measures that you can take to kind of like maybe stop the bleeding? This is a little too harsh. But to like stop the decline, be supportive here. Are there any things around innovation or things that you can do shifting away from that business? On the sweetness side, what are the things you're looking at in order to manage that business?
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, we've been working for many years in the diversification of the grind that you heard us many times saying, the fight for the grind. So we produce many products and that helps sometimes soften this. You heard us talking about biosolutions and how we are moving some of those products into different applications, industrial applications. So we have some successes with starches in places like personal care or fabric softeners, things like that. So it's slow because of course those markets are smaller than a sweeteners market. And then it takes more effort. But we continue to have efforts there to diversify the grind.
Ben Toyer (Equity Analyst at Barclays)
Thank you very much.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
We can't invent that. Mexico will help us with a great World Cup. Everybody will drink lots of coffee.
Ben Toyer (Equity Analyst at Barclays)
I'm gonna do my best.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your question. Your next question comes from the line of Puran Sharma from Stevens Inc. Your line is now open.
Puran Sharma
Good morning and congrats on the. On the strong results here. I maybe wanted to just focus on. Absolutely. First question, Just wanted to focus on ethanol. Can you talk about what is driving margin strength here? I think it's export demand and there was momentum prior to the start of the conflict with Iran. So just want to understand from your point of view what's driving this and have you seen any incremental upside from the conflict?
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, listen, as you said before the conflict, we were already seeing good margins for ethanol. I think that we had rough weather in general that affected some of these plants with the polar vortex in January or something. So we were coming into an environment where we had strong domestic demand given by the tightenings of the rins and the values of the rins. Also strong export demand. Demand for Exports were about 10% year over year. So that was pulling on an industry that was not producing fully. And I draw down inventory. So we are going a little bit through maintenance now before the driving season anyways as well. So we expect that to do well. Don't forget that ethanol at about $2 per gallon is incredibly competitive globally. You have Arbo trading at, I don't know, north of $3.50. So there is a big incentive here to blend domestically. So we expect domestically to something in the range of 14 and a half billion gallon, give or take. When you add to that 2.4, that is our expectation for export. That's almost close to 17 billion gallons. I still remember how much I was celebrating with our exports were the billion gallons a few years back. So now we're talking about two and a half. Whether those exports are being held by maybe the conflict or the tightness, maybe there is some of that. But you see more and more countries trying to bring resilience to their fuel system by diversifying into biofuels. So you see Vietnam increasing now to E10. You see Brazil going now to B32. So you have many countries popping up into that. And they are. All of that is helping the US exports.
Puran Sharma
Great. Appreciate the color there. And just really quickly, Was there any 45z inch earnings? And then when we think about modeling this, should we be adding this to segment income or should we be excluding these from the tax line?
Mohnish Patilwala
Yeah, you should be including it to segment income. And I would say yes, we have. And of course we continue to work on all the details that needs for implementation of that. But the team has done a good job. And at this point for the year, we are expecting an impact of about $150 million for a full 20, 26.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your question. Your next line comes from the line of Andrew Strelczak from bmo. Andrew, your line is now open.
Andrew Strelczak (Equity Analyst at BMO)
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Obviously, a very dynamic environment out there, inverted curves. I was hoping that maybe you could help us think about the kind of earnings cadence through the year, whether it's first half back half split or. Or however you want to frame that. And also, you know, to what extent you have visibility for the balance of the year versus where you typically are at this time of year. Obviously that had been a little bit of an issue in prior quarters, so curious where that is too.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, listen, I've been doing this for quite a while, so at the beginning of my mandate, I remember we were like 48 and a half to 51 and a half or 48, 52 in our split, first half, second half since our, you know, our product mix has shifted and maybe the US is not as competitive as exports of grain. Probably now we are talking about something like 49, 51 type of split between first half and second half. Of course there is a lot of uncertainty still the visibility we have. Listen, when we get to this point of the quarter for Q3 if you will, we're probably sold about 30% in mill and about 50 to 60% in oil. So we still have a piece open there. And of course for Q4 it's only maybe 10% so we still have a lot to go through. In general, I would say customers are not buying that much in advance. The oil industry is normally more spot and I would say for our oil customers and for human consumption is also relatively. We don't have a huge book yet so I think we trying to stay open.
Mohnish Patilwala
I'll add Andrew, for Q2, when you think about the quarterly cadence that Juan mentioned just on Q2, Q2 will be stronger than Q1. A couple of things we've talked about the mark to market of 275 million approximately that we took in Q1. Majority of that will reverse in Q2 and the balance in the second half. Secondly, seasonally nutrition is higher, especially our flavors product line so that you can factor that into. And the third one is strength in ethanol as Juan mentioned. So that's all put together. You'll also see tax rate was a little lower in Q1. That will normalize itself over the year. And then the second piece is as we have talked about, we've been very prudent on cost and CapEx through first quarter. And as we are starting to see the constructive environment, we will continue to invest in our growth initiatives, continue to invest in digitization, all of that setting us up for the long term value creation for adm.
Andrew Strelczak (Equity Analyst at BMO)
Okay, that was super helpful and my follow up is related to that. You talked about pretty tightly managing the capital spend. But as your earnings trajectory improves in this more constructive environment, whether it's 26 or beyond, how are you thinking about capital allocation incrementally? Are there more capex projects on the radar? Maybe you could talk about those is maybe it's the buyback that's more interesting just how you're thinking about capital allocation.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Thanks. Yeah, we continue to invest with our balanced framework of capital allocation that we have maintained for a few years. Always our biggest opportunities in cost and growth projects and we give priority to that. As Moni just described, we have a lot of projects related to cost savings in manufacturing but also our low cost to serve and increasing capabilities. And we also are fueling five growth platforms that will serve us well that we like very much because they have a balance of short term medium term and long term impact for adm. So it gives us a good cadence going forward. So then of course we honor the dividend and we will continue to try to pay and grow the dividend every year as we have done for many, many years. I think this year we just paid, this quarter we paid like 377th consecutive dividend, which is an incredible record for the company. And of course probably what is embedded in your question is what are we going to do with M and A and or buybacks? And we will continue with our prudent bolt on M and A. So we done that when we see value opportunities, are there something that fits strategically to our developments? And yes, it is plausible that as our cash flows improve and our balanced capital allocation remains the same way that potentially we could do buybacks into the future. That's not out of the question. So we will continue to monitor how things evolved.
Andrew Strelczak (Equity Analyst at BMO)
Great. Thank you very much.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
You're welcome.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your question. Your next question comes from the line of Heather Jones of Heather Jones Research. Your line is now open.
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
Good morning.
Mohnish Patilwala
Thanks for the question. The first question is going back to what you all were saying about the cadence of earnings and if I understood you correctly, roughly half will be in the second half. And if I take the midpoint of your guide, that would apply only 20, 25% year on year growth and would imply you get close to where second half of 24 was. So just wondering, the biofuel policy, not just in the US but globally is the most constructive it's ever been. And so wondering what are the things in your business that are giving you pause that would cause the year on year growth to not be more robust than that or is this just conservatism? So that's my first question.
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
Yes, Heather goes back to what Juan and I have talked about in our prepared remarks as well as a few of the questions that have already been asked. When you thought about when we came into the year we had talked about a more back end loaded. Secondly, as everybody knows with the RVO's coming in, we pretty much called a trajectory. It just came in faster than we thought. And based on that we felt that it's prudent right now based on the mark to market reversal, the normal seasonality we get in nutrition, as well as ethanol strength, that we'll see 49% to 51% first half, second half. The other things, when you factor in the second half right now there is an inverted curve and that inverted curve is for multiple factors including some of
Mohnish Patilwala
the risks that exist
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
in the economy right now.
Mohnish Patilwala
We also have a slightly higher tax rate that will come in in the
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
second half of the year and we will invest more in R and D and digitization that I talked about. But when you put all that together, when we look at the first quarter, the team started very well. You've seen that they've been able to capture the opportunities and margins that existed.
Mohnish Patilwala
So as that curve moves through and
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
the opportunities exist, I can tell you the team is very well geared to take advantage of that. 2Q is a very important quarter for us because we have to make sure that all these executions happen. We'll get some more clarity as the world continues to evolve. We've got policy dynamics that we are watching through.
Mohnish Patilwala
Our assumption is that China will continue
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
to buy its normal volume in Q4, but that's to be what.
Mohnish Patilwala
So put all that together.
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
We raised our guidance from 360 and 425 to 415 to 470. Again, the team's executing well. Good start to Q1 and we'll continue to execute over the next three quarters and we'll keep you posted.
Mohnish Patilwala
Okay, thank you for that. And then my follow up is on ethanol. And so it sounds like you raised the amount that you think will the 45Z will benefit earnings somewhat for the full year. But I mean it was an extremely strong quarter. You know, both the wet milling side and dry and European market has been strong for some time. So just wondering what changed? I mean, were the risk management, Was the risk management benefit unusually large or should we consider, should we assume that the kind of strength that we saw in Q1 is sustainable throughout the year?
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
Yeah, Heather, there are so many factors to consider in here. In 45C, you need to think about the carbon intensity score by every plant, the prevailing wage, the amount of carbon we sequester, the production volumes, but also the industry pricing reaction to this policy. So at this point in time, given what happened in the Q1, we are increasing the expected amount. I think we mentioned last time it was going to be 100 million. Now we're saying it's 150 million. I think that that's how we see it at this point in time. Could it be a surprise for the positive? We hope so. At this point in time. That's what we're looking at.
Mohnish Patilwala
Thank you for your question.
Heather Jones (Research Analyst at Heather Jones Research)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Haynes at Morgan Stanley. Steven, your line is now open.
Stephen Haynes
Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Wanted to ask on CARB Solutions Maybe just in the quarter, kind of within the 350 or so of operating profit
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
that you all did. Can you maybe just help us think a bit about how much of that splits out between ethanol versus the non ethanol piece? Obviously we can see, you know, the, the VCP part of it, but it's harder to disaggregate within sweeteners and starches. So if you could just provide any additional color there, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Stephen Haynes
Yeah, maybe I can provide the dynamics and maybe mohnish if you want to give more granularity later. I think we continue to see certain weakness in sweeteners. So our sweeteners and starches volumes are down 3% and margins are down a little bit more than that. Of course, Carb solutions corn plants are very big energy users and chemical users. So the cost of those plants are not doing great right now with the conflict. Although we continue to improve our operational performance, energy is up and some of the chemicals are up. I think we started to see starches getting better and stabilizing in their volumes. And ethanol has been the good actor of the quarter. So EBITDA margins per gallon went up like 18 cents from the same quarter last year. So driven by all the factors I think I explained before in one of the questions. So. So I will say hopefully that gives you an idea. That's our expectation, if you will, for the second quarter that those dynamics will be maintained and the nature of the results should be similar. Of course, they are easy to see in BCP and in the wet mills. We produce about 22 different things out of a wet mill, so it's more difficult to quantify there because also we try to optimize that mix all the time looking at the different margins at the different grind providers. So that's not that easy to call, but I hope with the granularity I gave you, provide you enough for you to build your models going forward.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Your next question comes from the line of Dushiant Ailani from Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Dushiant Ailani (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)
Hi Dean, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe my first one, could you talk to a little bit about the soybean meal demand? I know, I think earlier in your comments you mentioned using strong demand there, but could you maybe just talk a little bit about the puts and takes in terms of, you know, how that
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
evolves through the course of the year? Yes, of course. Listen, soybean meal continues to be strong. If you look at the soybean meal versus corn ratio that sit near two or below that sustains strong inclusion in feed formulas. You see, even that's more acute in China where corn prices are higher. So global soybean meal demand continues to surge, driven by still healthy livestock profitability, expanding of the dairy output. So the US has a big book for exports on soybean meal. I think that that was helped a little bit by Argentina. You know, Argentina lost all the cushioning from the old crop and now basically their crash is limited by the harvest and harvest was a little bit delayed by a couple of weeks because of the floods. So I think that we are exporting a lot and demand has been very good. So that has provided another strong leg of the crash. Today soybean oil is probably like 52, 52 and a half percent of the crash. And that's putting that probably as much as we are crashing. We probably tighten up the meal balance because mil is so strong.
Dushiant Ailani (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)
So hope that helps.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yes, that does. Thank you. And then my follow up question is on decade or east. I think you said that it's basically fully up and running. I think in the prior call we had mentioned that there were some customers that had moved away. Have you been able to recover all of them?
Dushiant Ailani (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)
What's the data status on that?
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, no, of course you won't recover this immediately. People in our absence was long more than a year. So people took different commitments on that and we are rapidly trying to recover that. We have now a full, our full volume is being offered and as I said, I think that we trust that our good quality, the preference that customers have traditionally have for this product will bring us back. But the team is making progress, not full. We haven't recovered our full position yet and that would probably take a while.
Dushiant Ailani (Equity Analyst at Jefferies)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
You're welcome.
Matthew Blair (Equity Analyst at TPH)
Your final question comes from the line of Matthew Blair from tph. Matthew, your line is now open.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
Great, thank you and good morning. You mentioned the inverted soy crush futures curve previously. Could you talk about, you know, what, what's really driving that? Like, are there fundamental factors that are pulling down future margins or is this just like a matter of liquidity and, you know, less liquidity in, in the outgoing months? Thanks.
Matthew Blair (Equity Analyst at TPH)
Yeah, I think that there is a strong, you know, immediate demand for soy and for oil and meal. And of course there is uncertainty about what's happening in the future in the second half where there is at this point in time, you have very strong demand for soybean oil, very strong demand for soybean meal and a relatively flat soybean trading in kind of a flat range, if you will. So all of a sudden you look at the future and you need to think about, okay, what's going to happen with the trade deal and Trump visits to China, will that move soybeans? And then you think about resolution of the conflict, crops and weather and all those things. So energy prices. So there are a lot of uncertainties in the second half. And I think that that's, I think Mohnish show it or mentioned it before in the guidance. You know, we're looking at consumer impact, we're looking at demand, we're looking at inflation, we're looking at many things. So I think the curve is reflecting that. And to the extent that we move forward and those dynamics continue, the curve may be extending forward, you know, so, and shifting into the future. So we're monitoring that. Thank you.
Juan Luciano (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer)
I'll leave it there. Thank you, Matthew.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your questions. We have reached the end of the Q and A session. I will now turn the call back to Kate Walsh for closing remarks. Kate, please go ahead.
Kate Walsh
Thank you all for joining the call today. We appreciate your continued interest and support of ADM and wish you a great rest of your day. Goodbye.
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