WILMINGTON, Del., Nov. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Corteva
Agriscience™, the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, at its
investor day in New York City,
outlined its plans to become a global pure-play agriculture company
following its intended separation from DowDuPont on June 1, 2019. The sessions were led by
future Chief Executive Officer, James C.
Collins, Jr.
As part of the DowDuPont Investor Day, Collins and other members
of the Corteva Agriscience senior leadership team provided a
detailed view of the company's strategy to deliver growth and
shareholder value by leveraging its industry-leading innovation
engine to successfully launch new products targeted to famer needs,
optimizing its organizational structure and go-to-market strategy,
and maximizing return on invested capital through discipline and
productivity.
"We are pleased to share with the investment community an
in-depth look at our growth strategy and the significant progress
we have made in preparing the company to compete successfully and
become the independent global industry leader we envision," said
Collins. "We have positioned Corteva Agriscience to capitalize on
its unique strengths, including our ability to offer farmers
complete solutions, based on the most balanced and diverse
portfolio across seed, crop protection, and digital, as well as our
geographic scale, leading market positions, and unique route to
market capabilities. Through disciplined, customer-focused
execution we will build on our competitive advantages, provide our
customers with the best, most sustainable solutions and increase
returns for our shareholders."
Future Chief Financial Officer Greg
Friedman provided an overview of the financial profile and
the company's path to driving shareholder value-creation.
Commenting on the company's plans, Friedman said, "We expect to
deliver sales growth above the market, led by new product launches
from our industry-leading pipeline. We plan to drive margin
expansion and above-market growth on the bottom line as well
through a continued focus on cost synergy delivery,
cost-competitiveness and enhanced product mix, all while
maintaining a relentless focus on ROIC and shareholder
returns."
Friedman outlined how the company plans to align its financial
policy to deliver strong returns including through:
- Commitment to maintain an A- category credit profile: Maintain
financial flexibility to support industry leading business
model;
- Investment in growth: Committed to growing cash flow
consistently while investing in innovation;
- Competitive dividend policy: In line with peers and increases
over time as earnings and free cash flow improves; payout ratio of
approximately 25-35% percent of net income; and
- Share repurchase: Committed to return excess cash to
shareholders.
Additional members of the Corteva management team provided an
overview on the company's strategic path and progress
including:
- Executive Vice President of Business Platforms, Rajan Gajaria, outlined the company's business
strategy to leverage its robust, combined capabilities, pipeline,
and scale to drive above market sales growth while delivering on
cost synergies and enhancing efficiency to grow the company's
bottom line through a focused and disciplined approach to capital
and resource allocation.
- Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer,
Tim Glenn, provided insights into
the company's plans to implement its business strategy at the
regional level, including how Corteva Agriscience will build on its
market leading positions, deep customer relationships and unique
route to market to maximize customer choice and value and drive
growth.
- Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer,
Neal Gutterson, shared the company's
disciplined approach to innovation and focus on aligning R&D
investments with customer needs while leveraging its global
capabilities to deliver local expertise and solutions, innovating
faster, smarter and with a constant focus on the farmer and
sustainability.
The Investor Day presentations outlined the company's five
priorities for shareholder value creation, including:
- Instill a strong, performance-based, inclusive,
customer-centric culture that increases accountability while
driving a focus on returns; demonstrates the company's commitment
to its customers; and seeks to do things better, safer, and
healthier than its competitors.
- Drive disciplined capital allocation with a strong focus
on ROIC, including rigorously reviewing all R&D and capital
expenditures based on expected returns; actively managing the
portfolio to enhance the business platforms for higher returns; and
improving working capital productivity.
- Develop innovative solutions that improve farmer
productivity and global food security, continuing the company's
leading innovation approach in seeds and crop protection; and
expanding its portfolio of solutions globally to include advanced
digital technology offerings.
- Attain a best-in-class cost structure by driving
productivity and discipline based on industry benchmarks and
affordability; improving and digitizing the company's technology
systems; enriching product mix and expanding profit margins.
- Deliver above-market growth through the richest new
product pipeline in the industry and a best-in-class route to
market. This includes successfully launching 21 new products over
the next five years; building the company's multi-channel,
multi-brand sales organization; and continuing to deepen customer
relationships through the company's unique direct routes to
market.
The recorded event drew more than 200 attendees. The
webcast replay and presentation materials can be accessed at
http://www.dow-dupont.com/investors/events-and-presentations.
About Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division
of DowDuPont
Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture
Division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), is intended to become an
independent, publicly traded company when the previously announced
spinoff is complete by June 2019. The
division combines the strengths of DuPont Pioneer, DuPont Crop
Protection and Dow AgroSciences. Corteva Agriscience™
provides growers around the world with the most complete portfolio
in the industry — including some of the most recognized brands in
agriculture: Pioneer®, Encirca®, the newly
launched Brevant™ Seeds, as well as award-winning Crop
Protection products — while bringing new products to market through
our solid pipeline of active chemistry and technologies. More
information can be found at www.corteva.com.
Follow Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont,
on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
All products, unless otherwise noted, denoted with ™, ℠ or ® are
trademarks or registered trademarks of DowDuPont.
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SOURCE DowDuPont