By Karl Plume
(Reuters) -U.S. crop commodities trader Bunge Global posted a larger-than-expected quarterly profit drop on Wednesday and warned that 2025 earnings could sink to the lowest in six years as trade tensions and biofuel policy uncertainty drag on the agricultural sector.
Bunge’s 2024 profit fell short of expectations after weak oilseed processing margins slashed fourth-quarter earnings in its core agribusiness segment.
The company said processing would remain under pressure in 2025 due to weak margins and a challenging economic environment, with global trade tensions and biofuel policy uncertainty creating headwinds for crop traders.
“We definitely are in an environment that has less visibility than the normal with the trade disruptions, some of the uncertainty around U.S. biofuels,” said CEO Greg Heckman.
Bunge shares were down 5.2% midmorning.
The struggles come as Bunge is working to close a deal to acquire grain handler Viterra, a merger that would create an agribusiness powerhouse closer in size to peers Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill. Bunge said regulatory approvals for the deal were in the late stages.
The company has seen profits erode as a global glut of staple crops like soybeans and corn dragged prices to four-year lows last year, whittling down margins.
ADM on Tuesday posted its lowest fourth-quarter profit in six years and said it was slashing costs and cutting jobs, joining Cargill in tightening its belt.
Bunge’s agribusiness segment, its largest, saw adjusted profit fall 43%, with processing sub-segment profit down nearly 60% from a year earlier on lower oilseed crushing results in North and South America and Europe.
Refined and specialty oils unit’s adjusted profit dropped 25% due in part to U.S. biofuel policy uncertainty.
Bunge forecast adjusted earnings of $7.75 per share in 2025, down from $9.19 per share in 2024 and missing analysts’ expectations of $8.71. The 2025 guidance did not include its pending Viterra acquisition.
Adjusted fourth-quarter profit fell to $2.13 per share from $3.70 a year earlier, below the consensus analyst estimates of $2.24, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago and Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru. Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Mark Potter and Marguerita Choy)
