Nufarm Investor Day Highlights and Analysis

This week Nufarm held it’s Investor event over the course of two-days. It was the first for new CEO Rico Christensen and the Nufarm team unveiled a new strategic plan that I think is useful to dig into.

Index:

Nufarm is a company I do not cover as much because they tend to share less, but they are publicly listed on the ASX (Australian Stock Exhcange) and have historically derived the bulk of their revenue from off-patent crop protection across Australia, North America, and Europe.

In the early 2020’s, from 2021 to 2023, they saw success in the post-COVID crop protection growth and by ramping up a growing Nuseed narrative: seeds were positioned as a high-margin growth opportunity, with management targeting a 20-25% EBITDA margin from seed technologies, and in FY23 Seed Technologies revenue grew 33% and EBITDA 67% on omega-3 licensing, hybrid seed, and carinata backed by a bp offtake deal. Nufarm was one of the first of the major seed/crop protection companies to plant their flag on an integrated supply chain from seed to processing.

However, they were hit as hard any anyone during the industry-wide generic destocking, and then in their first half 2025, their Seed Technologies EBITDA halved, citing oversupply and price pressure in the omega-3 market, the share price fell nearly 40% in a week, and the company put Nuseed under a review, with groups such as BP and the KKR-backed Advanta (UPL) expressing interest. No deal came out of it though.Nufarm kept the seed division after concluding retention delivered the best value, but took a loss of $165.3 million for FY25, driven by $142.4 million in mostly non-cash charges as it cut back emerging-crop spending.

Leadership has changed as well with Rico Christensen succeeding Greg Hunt as CEO at the start of this year. That change is leadership is bringing in a new vision and focus for the business, specifically as it pertains to the crop protection segment, and driven by what they say is an evolution in agriculture:

And therefore their focus is shifting towards:

Below is a closer look at the specifics of where Nufarm says it can win.