2019 Letter to Stockholders Proxy Statement 2018 Form 10-K
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ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND COMPANY 2019 Letter to Stockholders Proxy Statement 2018 Form 10-K Dear Stockholders, Our team delivered a solid performance in 2018, meeting the growing and evolving global needs of our agricultural, industrial, animal nutrition, and food and beverage customers. The result was a year in which, in an environment of trade disruptions, we delivered strong results while continuing to advance our strategy. The safety and health of the colleagues and partners working in our facilities remains our highest day-to-day priority. This was our 18th consecutive year of reducing recordable injuries, and December overall was the safest month ever for our employees. However, we know from experience that complacency is the enemy of continued progress and that we can still do better, so ADM continues to maintain a relentless focus on safety. From an overall financial perspective, we continued to execute our balanced capital allocation framework, which — along with strong operating cash flow generation — resulted in a solid balance sheet at the end of the year. $3.50 $3.4 billion 8.3% 4.5% 349 2018 Adjusted EPS, 2018 Adjusted Four-Quarter Trailing Increase in quarterly Consecutive quarterly 44% higher than Segment Operating Return on Invested dividend in February dividend payments as 2017 Profit, 26% higher Capital, 200 bps 2019 of February 2019 than 2017 above annual WACC Across all four of our businesses, our teams performed very well: • Origination delivered full-year adjusted operating profits of $546 million, 35 percent higher than in 2017. The team planned in advance and moved swiftly to manage changing trade flows, allowing us to minimize disruptions and capi- talize on new opportunities. Simultaneously, we continued to grow our value-added services, with the destination marketing team achieving our growth goal of 20 million metric tons in origination volumes a year earlier than our original target. • Oilseeds had a very strong year, delivering record profits, up almost 80 percent over 2017, and showing how our truly global, diversified business can capitalize on growing demand in dynamic market conditions. The team did well managing risk in a volatile market and delivering growth, utilizing our asset base, flex capacity and growth invest- ments to set strong performance records. • The Carbohydrate Solutions team showed how innovation and creative problem solving can help mitigate the impact of challenging market conditions. We grew sweetener sales year over year by working closely with major customers to find new solutions for evolving needs, and we moved swiftly to capitalize on opportunities in a growing starches market. Bioproducts results were lower year over year in a weak ethanol industry pricing and margin envi- ronment. • The Nutrition business continued its strong growth, as investments helped contribute to sales that were up almost 7 percent versus 2017 on a constant currency basis and operating profits that were 9 percent higher year over year. Through continued collaboration with our customers, we were able to provide innovative solutions across our growth platforms — including animal nutrition, health & wellness, human nutrition and taste — as well as increase our sales growth pipeline by 50 percent over 2017. Our team achieved all of this while simultaneously advancing our strategic plan: In our efforts to Optimize the Core, we: • Divested our Bolivian oilseeds business; • Sold several elevators in the U.S., further optimizing our origination footprint; and • Led significant turnarounds in our global trade and South American origination businesses. As part of our work to Drive Efficiencies, we: • Delivered cost savings of more than $300 million on a run-rate basis, significantly outpacing our target of $200 million; and • Began working with industry peers to investigate ways to use emerging digital technologies to standardize and digi- tize time-intensive processes associated with the global agricultural commodity value chain. In our Growth pillar, our investments helped to contribute to the year’s strong performance and lay a strong foundation for future growth: • In our Core Growth platform, we announced GrainBridge, an important joint venture with Cargill in the digital innovation space; launched our SoyVen joint venture, which operates a soybean processing facility in Egypt; and grew our Brazilian Oilseeds crush and value-added footprint with the addition of certain assets of Algar Agro, including two crushing and refining facilities. We also completed a significant modernization of our flour mill in Enid, Oklahoma. • In Animal Nutrition, we completed negotiations to acquire Neovia, a truly transformational addition that, after closing in early 2019, instantly made ADM a global industry leader in value-added products and solutions for both production and companion animals. We also celebrated the opening of modernized production facilities in Illinois and Nebraska. • In Health & Wellness, we acquired leading natural healthcare and probiotics provider Protexin, and opened a new enzyme research lab in California. • In Human Nutrition, we continued to expand our global network of customer innovation centers, with openings in Singapore and Shanghai, and we began commissioning our state-of-the-art pea protein facility in Enderlin, North Dakota. • In Carbohydrates, we launched our AKP joint venture, expanding our global starches and sweeteners business into the Russian market. • In Taste, we added premium vanilla producer Rodelle, Inc. We also continued to advance critical Sustainability efforts in 2018: Diversity and Inclusion Throughout 2018, several organizations recognized ADM’s efforts to build an inclusive culture and diverse workforce. Profiles In Diversity Journal gave its 2018 Innovations in Diversity Award to “Together We Grow”, a consortium that ADM co-launched in 2016 to focus on educating, recruiting, and retaining a more diverse workforce in the agriculture sector, and named two ADM leaders as “Women Worth Watching”; USG Corporation named our company as its Diversity & Inclusion Supplier of the Year; and The Rising Tides recognized our Board and executive leadership team as one of the most diverse among Fortune 50 companies. We are proud of the increasing recognition we’re receiving, but we know we have to do more. In January of this year, we announced a partnership with Paradigm for Parity®, and a commitment to achieving gender parity within our senior leadership structure by 2030. We will continue to prioritize building an inclusive and diverse culture throughout 2019 and beyond. Environmental Stewardship Our focus on sustainable practices and environmental responsibility remained a focus in 2018 as well. We have already met — ahead of schedule — our own ambitious goals for energy, greenhouse gas, water and waste reduction. I am proud that we are being recognized for our efforts: ADM was named an Industry Mover in the RobecoSAM Sustainability Yearbook 2018, and last November, the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture awarded its 2018 Collaboration of the Year Award to ADM, along with General Mills and Agrible, for our work helping farmers in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri to measure and improve management of natural resources. Overall, 2018 was a strong year, and I am proud of how the ADM team performed. Now, we are well into 2019, and fully focused on continuing to pull the levers under our control to deliver value for our customers and our shareholders. There are three key areas we will be prioritizing this year. • The first is continuing to improve the performance of certain businesses. As we continue to optimize the core, we have established specific year-over-year improvement targets for those businesses that need to further strengthen their performance. We plan to rigorously monitor their performance throughout the year and take further actions if neces- sary to ensure that they meet our expectations. At the same time, we will ensure that stronger businesses sustain and build on previous gains. • The second is Readiness. Our effort to standardize processes globally, drive overall performance excellence, and digi- tize the enterprise underpins our entire strategy. 2018 was the year in which we launched Readiness and embedded the change within the whole organization. We identified thousands of initiatives to standardize, centralize, and digi- tize how we do business. By the end of the year, we had already completed 120 of those initiatives, generating $300 million in new run-rate benefits. 2019 is when we expect Readiness to accelerate, as we take our current bank of prioritized initiatives and deliver projects and cultural change that, taken together, will permanently change how we run our business, creating a lasting structure under which we will be more efficient and more effective. • The third priority area is growth — specifically, ensuring that the growth investments we have made in recent years fully deliver on their profit and returns potential. Since 2014, we have dramatically expanded our portfolio and our geographic reach with both organic growth projects and M&A activity. All told, we have made more than $7 billion in growth investments over the last five years. Now, with an unparalleled portfolio of products and ingredient solutions in key growth markets around the world, 2019 is the year we focus on harvesting increasing returns from those investments. ADM is following a clear path for success, as our strategy, our innovation and our people continue to differentiate