Good afternoon all, and welcome to the Bioceres Crop Solutions fiscal first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor over to Paula Savanti, Head of Investor Relations, to begin. Paula, please go ahead when you are ready.
Thank you, and good morning to everybody. Thank you for joining. Presenting today during the call will be Federico Trucco, our Chief Executive Officer, and Enrique López Lecube, our Chief Financial Officer. Both will be available for the Q&A session. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Safe Harbor statement. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of today's earnings release and presentation, as well as our recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed circumstances. This conference call is being webcast. The webcast link is available at the Bioceres Crop Solutions Investor Relations website. At this time, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Federico Trucco. Thank you.
Thank you, Paula, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Good morning. Please turn to slide three so that we can start our earnings call. The first quarter of fiscal 2023 has been a fantastic quarter in multiple ways. We have grown revenues by 71%, and this is after including ProFarm's historical revenues in the year-over-year comparisons. This revenue growth has trickled down to profitability, with our Adjusted EBITDA almost doubling for this quarter and reaching $24.5 million. A record quarterly number that is even more impressive if you consider that we're now fully accounting for ProFarm, which is initially a negative EBITDA contributor, which we intend to quickly turn around into a positive contributor.
On this last point, as we discussed in our September call, we have finalized the ProFarm merger on July twelfth and have started the integration process during the reported quarter. This transaction triggered a change to US dollars as a functional currency in our main subsidiary in Argentina, which we believe will help us better reflect the reality of this business in our consolidated financials. Enrique will expand on this in his part of the presentation. We will report on HB4 crop status in a few minutes with HB4 start-safe plantings underway and HB4 wheat harvest to start in the next few weeks. Finally, we would like to use today's presentation to discuss the long-term agreement we have recently reached with Syngenta Seedcare to accelerate the expansion of our inoculants internationally.
Discuss why we did it, what is the expected benefits, what is included, and what is not included in the agreement. Before we move to the next slide to more deeply address each key highlight, we also would like to announce the completion of our share buyback program. The program was launched back in March 2020, and we have since bought approximately 570,000 shares with an average acquisition price of $8.77. We have used the program opportunistically where we observe significant dislocation in the market, and we intend to continue to do so by refreshing the program for another $5 million on a forward-looking basis. Please now turn to slide four. This slide shows the year-over-year growth of pacing comparable revenues for the last six quarters and the growth reported in the current quarter.
It is obviously not the same to grow at a 71% rate if you're coming from a flat year than when you're running at a 62% growth rate from the fiscal year immediately before. We are very proud of this quarter's performance, and Enrique will further address each in his part of the presentation. Moving to slide five. As we have already discussed, we have completed the merger with ProFarm and now have an unmatched platform for future growth in biological ag inputs, positioning our company as a clear leader in sustainable solutions for the agriculture of the future. With the integration of ProFarm, we now have an existing portfolio or pipeline of products designed to replace or significantly reduce the use of synthetic chemicals in most functions for which they are required in high productivity agriculture.
Where we can most immediately achieve this substitution is in the Seedcare segment of the industry. As we will describe shortly when we discuss the long-term collaboration agreement reached with one of the segment leaders, Syngenta. Before we do that, let's review the status of HB4 crops in the next three slides. Severe drought conditions in Argentina may transiently slow down sales in our second quarter, the current quarter. However, at the same time, the drought is creating a unique opportunity to showcase HB4 technology. With a countrywide wheat crop decline expected to be at the 40% level compared to last year's harvest. As you know, HB4 crops are drought tolerant, not drought proof. So we expect to lose some fields where the conditions have been too extreme and the crop will not be taken to harvest.
We think that 86% of the fields will be harvested and provide good indication of the benefit of HB4. We believe also that we'll have enough inventories to stay on track and meet our fiscal year 2023 goals for the crop, positioning us to reach the guidance provided for fiscal year 2024. In the next slide, you can see the phenotypic difference observed for one of our second-generation materials when compared to isogenic non-HB4 sister line, which is currently a top-selling conventional variety in Argentina. We are looking forward to see these differences translate into yield benefit and report this in more detail in our next earnings call. In the next slide, we can provide a brief update on HB4 Soy.
We are making good progress with HB4 Soy breeding and multiplication efforts, with out-of-season planting well underway and with two varieties being scaled in the fall for an upcoming launch with multipliers next season. Importantly, we have onboarded four new licensees or germplasm providers covering genetics for Argentina, Brazil, the United States and South Africa, where we recently obtained seed and food clearance for both HB4 Wheat and HB4 Soy. We're doing this while advancing our strategic collaborations. For instance, we expect varieties from Grupo Don Mario to become available to multiple, to multipliers next year in Argentina and the following year in the United States. Let's now move to the next slide to discuss the announced long-term collaboration with Syngenta Seedcare. First, why Seedcare?
This is a $4 billion-$5 billion segment within the ag input market, in which biologicals are currently at 20% of the segment, with one-third lacking penetration resulting from inoculants. A product category where we have achieved significant success in Argentina and are starting to do so internationally. Biologicals in this segment are expected to reach $1.6 billion by the end of the decade, and we believe we can be a clear winner in capturing that growth. Turning to the next slide. To do this, to be a clear winner, we partner with a segment leader, Syngenta Seedcare. We have been collaborating with Syngenta Seedcare for 20 years in Argentina and have jointly achieved and held the number one position for our inoculants, biopesticides and Syngenta molecules for a long time.
This new collaboration creates the right structure to expand this success internationally at an accelerated pace. We expect the international revenues generated by our inoculants alone to at least double in the next two years. While Syngenta will now cover working capital needs as well as sales and marketing activities, we have secured minimum profits that average $23 million on a per year basis over the life of the agreement. This is not including an upfront fee of $50 million in exchange for the different rights granted for the collaboration. On top of these annual minimum profits, we will receive between 50% and 30% of the incremental profits generated by the collaboration, depending on the geography and the year.
The collaboration is not just designed to maximize our commercial reach, but it is also focused on accelerating our R&D efforts, with Syngenta covering 70% of the R&D investments required for every pipeline products and new products that we may opt to develop jointly within this framework. Finally, and turning to the next slide. We have not sold our inoculant business to Syngenta. We have partnered with Syngenta to make this business far more relevant over the next 10 years. The current agreement does not include ProFarm portfolio. It is retaining rights for us to use seed treatment solutions in our HB4 Farming as a Service channel or HB4 program. We are also making certain rights non-exclusive in the United States, for the over-the-top solutions, derived from products within the agreement.
We want to thank Syngenta Seedcare leadership for their trust and hard work to get to this point, and reassure them of our full commitment to the success of this joint endeavor. Enrique, all yours.
Thank you, Federico, and thank you to everyone joining us today. We are delighted to have kicked off the new fiscal year with such a strong performance.
The results that we are reporting today build on top of outstanding growth achievements throughout the previous quarters. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank our sales and operational teams for doing a fantastic job at getting our technologies and products to market with relentless execution. I will address the drivers behind our quarterly financial performance in the next few slides that, as Federico outlined, this was predominantly a very important quarter from a strategy standpoint. We started the fiscal year on a strong note by completing the merger with ProFarm, then continued to make considerable progress on our integration efforts and synergy targets in the quarter. Simultaneously, we executed an ironclad agreement with Syngenta Seedcare that creates value on multiple fronts. It provides a long-term profitable growth path for inoculants.
It broadens the scope of our research and development activities around seed treatment biologicals by having Syngenta co-fund 30% of the investment. It also strengthens our balance sheet by bringing in $50 million in a context of long-term loans in which liquidity has become an increasingly important lever to have at hand. These three milestones put us in a unique strategic position to structurally benefit from the secular growth trend and high profitability profile of the biologicals offer. Before I dive further into the quarter results, I would like to call your attention to a couple of important reporting changes we have introduced. The most relevant aspect relates to a switch in functional currency of our main Argentine subsidiaries, which is addressed on slide 12.
The merger with ProFarm and the subsequent business integration triggered the need to adopt the US dollar as the functional currency in our main operational subsidiaries in Argentina, starting in the first quarter of this fiscal year. Despite carrying out operations mostly in U.S. dollars, these subsidiaries had historically used the Argentine peso as the functional currency, and their financial statements were therefore subject to IAS 29 accounting adjustments that created distortions in our reported results and forced us to provide compiled metrics to better assess our underlying performance. The merger with ProFarm has enabled this long-standing shift, which now eliminates the need for IAS 29 inflationary adjustments, and as a result, comparable figures will no longer be presented except in reference to past quarters. Long-term, this change will simplify our financial reporting and provide our shareholders with a much clearer picture of our progress.
On a different note, to allow a fair comparison of our organic top-line growth year-over-year, we have taken the extra step to provide pro forma comparisons for fiscal year 2022 revenues and gross profit. Two metrics that would otherwise benefit from the addition of ProFarm in our fiscal 2022 results. Pro forma comparable figures reflect the addition of ProFarm to historical numbers and isolate any IAS 29 distortions on fiscal 2022 figures to favor a cleaner comparison of our results to past performance. Otherwise, as reported results from prior reporting periods will be used for other line items to the income statement and balance sheet, including Adjusted EBITDA. We recognize there will be a bit of adjustment as we go through the 2022, 2023 fiscal year. Again, we believe this change more accurately reflects our evolution as a company.
If we would turn now to slide 13, please. Our first quarter is dominated by sales in the southern hemisphere, where the growing season started in August. Summer crops planting in Latin America, an important source of revenues for us, spans the first half of our fiscal year, and our team did an exceptional job of anticipating and locking in a 71% growth in the first quarter in the face of dry weather, particularly in Argentina. As I mentioned, revenues from ProFarm are incorporated into our sales results, which gives you a like-for-like comparison of our total business first quarter to first quarter.
By any measure, a 71% increase in revenues has been a strong start and provides us with comfort on the outlook for the first half of the fiscal year, even as we navigate rough waters on what has now been confirmed as a historical drought in Argentina. Let me move to slide 13 for more detail on the revenue breakout by segment. Crop Nutrition was the main contributor to growth in the quarter. We saw continued strong adoption of our micronutrient fertilizers in an environment of tight and costly fertilizer supplies. The expansion was driven by the winter season and pre-season summer sales in Latin America. Inoculant sales also expanded across multiple regions. These gains were somewhat offset by lower sales of ProFarm biostimulants on a comparative basis because of the timing of sales last year.
All of the biostimulants from the ProFarm portfolio are now included into the Crop Nutrition segment, while all of the products that come from the legacy ProFarm biocontrol portfolio have been incorporated into the crop protection segment. Sales of crop protection products increased by 54%, even as growers faced dry weather conditions in key Latin America markets and in the United States. While drought conditions in the Western United States continue to curtail specialty crop sales, U.S. row crop sales of ProFarm bioprotection products grew. Adjuvant sales in Brazil and Argentina also delivered solid performance with higher B2B sales. Finally, sales of seed treatment packs ahead of planting were higher in both Latin America and South Africa. We anticipate drought conditions will likely hamper the planting and growing seasons in Latin America.
On the other hand, we will have the added benefit of ProFarm revenues, which we expect to be down in the low as we move through the fiscal year. If you turn to slide 15. Revenue growth translated into a 52% increase in gross profit, also led by our Crop Nutrition segment, which delivered an impressive 85% growth in gross profit with a 50% gross margin. Growth in seed treatment packs was also achieved with a healthy 60% gross margin. Overall gross margins of 40.5% were down roughly 500 basis points from the same period last year because of the mix of products sold within each segment, dampening margins across the board.
We, like others in our industry, experienced higher input and freight costs in the first quarter, which also played a role in putting pressure on margins of some products that require raw materials involving international logistics, such as adjuvants. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter reached a record high $24.5 million, as shown on slide 16. The increase in gross profit drove the improvement and more than offset higher operating expenses, reflecting healthy operational leverage. SG&A increase in the quarter was mainly driven by the addition of ProFarm operating expenses and by transitory costs related to the integration efforts, such as severance and higher than usual traveling expenses. Baseline business operating expenses were also higher, mainly explained by variable SG&A costs on higher sales.
Even with these additional one-timers, SG&A as a percent of sales after deducting $2.8 million in merger transaction expenses was roughly 23%, in line with the first quarter of last year. Despite not benefiting from a pro forma exercise from historical 2022 numbers, the Adjusted EBITDA margin remained relatively stable at 19.3% year-over-year. Slide 17 gives you a slightly different look at the overall Adjusted EBITDA improvement. It is comforting to see that our baseline business was strong enough to absorb the negative EBITDA contribution from ProFarm and still allow us to report an impressive $24.5 million result. It is also important to note that within the first quarter, we made meaningful progress on achieving cost synergies from the merger, which also contributed to minimizing the negative impact on EBITDA from ProFarm's results.
Within the next two quarters, we expect to fully achieve the cost synergies we targeted at the time of the merger and believe that by year-end, ProFarm assets will have turned into positive EBITDA contributors, which should be the basis on which we continue to build sales synergies in the next 12-18 months. Same as mentioned when describing sales, having achieved such an impressive EBITDA result in the first quarter gives us great comfort on the outlook of profitability for the first half of our fiscal 2023. If you turn to slide 18, let me wrap up by commenting briefly on the balance sheet. Total financial debt increased to $228 million related to the execution of the two financing agreements in connection with the ProFarm merger.
Part of the proceeds were allocated to paying off all existing ProFarm financial obligations, and the remaining were used to reinforce working capital at ProFarm and our overall cash position. Our net debt ratio remained relatively flat at 2.36x LTM Adjusted EBITDA, with a healthy balance of cash, current, and non-current debt. Cash and equivalents rose to $51.3 million at the end of the quarter, including cash used to fulfill our $5 million share repurchase commitment. Subsequently to the close of the quarter, we received the $50 million upfront payment from Syngenta, which brings our cash position to over $100 million. In conclusion, we have had an exceptional start to the 2023 fiscal year.
Despite severe weather conditions in some key markets, our strong first quarter results and the revenue diversification we gained from ProFarm makes us feel confident about the growth outlook for the full fiscal year and allows us to remain focused on executing our HB4 strategy and making ProFarm assets EBITDA contributors before year-end. With that, I would like to turn the call back over to Federico.
Thank you, Enrique. I don't want to take much longer, but I do want to finish with some looking forward remarks for the remainder of fiscal year 2023. If you turn to the next slide. I think we expect to see sustainable double-digit growth in our core business year-over-year. This is despite coming out of a terrific fiscal year 2022 and also after the volatility that we might be experiencing due to the weather conditions in Latin America. We are highly confident on this continued growth trajectory for the company for the fiscal year 2023. Obviously, the ProFarm integration process is an important aspect for the fiscal year, where we expect to reduce that negative EBITDA contribution from ProFarm and turn that into a positive number by the end of the year.
Also, take advantage of the R&D capabilities that exist within ProFarm to make them available not only to other internal customers, but also to external clients so that we can utilize this in full. We will fully launch HB4 Wheat in Argentina. We will have data coming out from the current harvest in the next earnings call and use that to validate and promote HB4 technology for the next season. We continue to scale HB4 Soy breeding and multiplication in Argentina and Brazil. With the inventory levels set in place and the performance achieved to meet the fiscal year 2024, 2025 guidances we have already provided.
To recap on those, we expect HB4 wheat to contribute between $16 million-$20 million of EBITDA in the next fiscal year, and soy to do that at the $20 million-$25 million level by fiscal year 2025. It is important that during fiscal year 2023, we meet the initial KPIs that we set in place for the Syngenta collaboration and scale up our production capacity for biologicals in Argentina and also for adjuvants in Brazil, hoping to finish the new facility by the end of the fiscal year and have that fully operational in fiscal year 2024. These are some of the sort of expectations for the current fiscal year that we wanted to finish the call with. We can now open up the floor for Q&A.
A reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your headset is fully plugged in and unmuted locally. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our first question today comes from Bobby Burleson from Deutsche Bank. Bobby, your line is open. Go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions. Not sure exactly what time it is for you guys, but good morning if it's still morning for you. Obviously. I guess, yeah, the first one is just, you know, if we think about ProFarm, you know, formerly Marrone, you know, they had nice growth, they had pretty healthy gross margins, but they always seemed to struggle a little bit with the OpEx. I know you guys are targeting reducing that negative EBITDA drag, and then turning that positive. Maybe just walk us through some of the low-hanging fruit there that'll help you kinda achieve that objective this fiscal year.
Hey, Bobby this is Enrique . Good to have you on the call for the first time. Thanks for taking the opportunity to ask questions. It is still morning for us, so you are right. Not as early for you, Bobby, but yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Very, very early.
You're right. Well, you're right on your comment. I mean, that's right on spot. There's obviously low-hanging fruit that we had identified at the time of the merger, and that was mostly related to sort of the de-risking of the company, and that was what we achieved first. Not having the costs or the repetitive costs of two parallel listed companies is something that gave us a quick win at the beginning. There were obviously some team restructuring measures that we took that were a bit harder to do, but we already accomplished those as well. We are currently today above 80% of the cost synergies that we had targeted. What we expect is that in the next couple of quarters, we will execute the remaining.
That plus growth coming from the sales teams in the next three quarters should allow us to put ProFarm at an EBITDA positive contribution or the assets coming for ProFarm. Now, bear in mind that in the way that we restructured the business and that we announced at the time of the merger, we will no longer be looking at ProFarm as a single standing entity. There will be business units and there's cross-selling there. So at some point, this will become, begin to be sort of like a one company. What we wanted to do today is give you some sort of notion on how we are targeting and tracking those operating expenses synergies.
On top of that, if we get to year-end and look back on a trailing 12 months basis and ProFarm has become a positive EBITDA entity, that should set the basis for us to continue executing on the medium-term synergies that were related to sales. Remember that we targeted between $5 million-$15 million in sales synergies that take a bit longer to be executed, mostly because it requires some work on the registration front. Registering some of the ProFarm products in geographies where we have sales muscle takes a bit of a time, but that's what we're looking for, a strong basis on which then to add those synergies.
Great. Very helpful. And then just, maybe just a quick follow-up, or slightly different question, I guess. You know, if we think about all the supply chain concerns and export issues for Ukraine, out of Ukraine, et cetera. You know, obviously, over the past few years, and it looks like it will continue to be so, you know, South America is becoming a major, has become a major export source for, you know, the world's food in certain areas in particular. And I'm wondering with the GM seed and trait capability you guys have developed with HB4, is there an increasing acceptance maybe for GM seeds and foods that they produce in regions of the world that maybe were resistant to GM, you know, Europe and, you know, et cetera?
What are your thoughts on, you know, that environment and how it's maybe broadening the scope of your opportunity there for HB4?
That's a great question. Robert, this is Federico now, and thank you for joining the call today. I think that the situation that you just described has created a shift in focus from sort of the way GM technology may be perceived by certain groups to sort of more important focus on food security. You know, all of a sudden we see the importance of food production and technologies that can help us increase their activity while preserving natural resources become center stage regardless of sort of the tools that we use to achieve these type of solutions. Yesterday, for instance, we received news from Indonesia approving HB4 Wheat for feed use.
That is on top of Nigeria coming from a continent where there was a high level of reluctance to a GMO approval, perhaps highly influenced by the historical European position. I'm not saying that we are ready to file in France for HB4 wheat clearance, but today we are much closer than we ever were in trying to get these technologies become accepted even by the more sort of skeptical or reluctant consumers. This is an opportunity we're seeking. After the approval in Argentina, you saw how approval cascaded in very meaningful geographies for wheat and soy.
Wheat obviously is more of a challenge because we are the only company today with a GM wheat event and wheat has been historically for human consumption unlike soy and corn which were more dedicated to animal feeding and biofuels. No? We're taking advantage of this situation. I think the current drought in Latin America will make this even more relevant and we expect to see many more approvals cascading down in the upcoming months.
Fantastic. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations on such a strong quarter.
Thanks, Bobby.
The next question comes from Ben Klieve from Lake Street Capital. Ben, please go ahead. Your line is open.
All right. Thanks for taking the questions. Yeah, congratulations on just another exceptional quarter across the board here. Two quick ones from me. My first question is on the quarter itself. You know, Enrique, I'm wondering if you saw any kind of lumpiness that benefited the quarter. You know, either revenue getting pushed from Q4 into Q1, some revenue getting pulled from Q2 into Q1 or any kind of outsized orders or if the success was just kind of broad across the board.
Hey, Ben, thanks for joining us and thanks for the question. Well, I think that the way we tend to look at the performance in the first quarter is all together with the second quarter. If you think about it, the first and the second quarter of our fiscal year are basically where all of the summer crops planting activities take place in Latin America. That remains an important market to us with Argentina, with Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay. I would say that we are looking at this as a part of the summer crops planting season that will roll through with Q2. There's a bit of sales that transcended from Q4 winter crops in micro-beaded fertilizers, but that's not as meaningful as it is in terms of looking at the first half as a whole.
That's what I would say, Ben, and that's why I think it's so important that we lock in this growth early in the season. That makes us feel comfortable as we look to the full fiscal year growth outlook. We remain positive about that, even as we transition what Federico described as one of the most severe droughts that Argentina has faced in the last probably three decades, and Argentina is an important market to us.
Got it. That's helpful, and that kind of helps a bit my second-to-last question here, and that's around the drought conditions. I mean, you guys have been very vocal about this. This is, you know, reports widespread around just the terrible dynamic that Argentine farmers are facing. You know, a couple of years ago, there was a similar dynamic underway, and I'm wondering if you can help characterize the, you know, kind of your outlook here into the second quarter and the, you know, chemical fertilizer application this coming period relative to
You know, similar conditions that arose a couple of years ago. Are you looking for as material a headwind as you faced two years ago? Do you think that's gonna be offset by other variables? You know, help us kind of frame the outlook here for the next quarter relative to the experience a couple years ago.
Hi, Ben. This is Federico. Thank you for joining us once more, and thanks for the question. I think that we're better prepared than what we were back then. First, because we have a more diversified base today, we will have, I think, we expect more meaningful contribution from ProFarm in North America and Europe in the quarter. In terms of the fertilizer impact, that is mostly related to corn planting, and that depends on the rain event that might happen in the upcoming days or weeks. I think if those rain events don't occur and so there's a transition from early season corn to later season corn, we might see a slowdown in the fertilizer sales.
I have to say that we're much better positioned than what we were two years ago when we faced a similar situation. Having had this great start, I think gives us enough of a cushion to deliver the first half revenues and results that we expected to deliver for fiscal year 2020.
Got it. Okay. Very good. Plenty more to talk about, but I'll pass over Tom here. Congratulations on a great quarter and I'll get back in line. Thanks, guys.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Brian Wright of ROTH Capital Partners. Brian, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thanks. Good morning. First of all, just wow, that's all I got to say, commentary. Question on the global minimum tax with accession to agreement, where you said the average is $23 million on a yearly basis over life, is that over the first four years, the five or the 10-year period, and how to think about like maybe how that minimum target kind of moves from the beginning to the end?
Okay. Hi, Brian. Great to have you on the call, and thank you for your initial welcome. We feel the same way. The $23 million average is basically the $230 million that are contractualized as minimum profits for the life of the agreement divided by 10 years, no? Initially, what we expect in initial years while we are still pursuing some of the business ourselves, this is not starting all at once, it's probably below a $23 million average. Then as we move to the later years, it's gonna be above that $23 million average. That's the guaranteed profitability under the agreement, almost in a take or pay type format.
On top of that, if we have sales from the collaboration that exceed those minimum targets, we will be sharing profits at a 50%-40% rate depending on the geography and the year. That is basically what we are reflecting with that average number in terms of the Syngenta collaboration.
Great. Thank you. Just a follow-on if I could. The cash position post that agreement, it's robust. Yeah, I know you completed the 5 million share buyback. There seems to be room for potentially more. Just any kind of comments along those lines?
In terms of the buyback, you mean?
Correct.
Look, I think we would like to continue to do what we have done in the past, which is take advantage of dislocations in the market and opportunistically exercise the buyback program. If we need to refresh on a monthly basis because we are sort of meeting the $5 million cap every month, we will ask our board permission to do so. This is kind of a capital allocation decision that needs to provide a level of return that is attractive compared to the other capital allocations that we might have in our business. This is not something that we're doing to support the price of the stock. This is an investment opportunity on something we really know well when the market gives us sort of an opportunity to do so. I don't know, Enrique, if you want to add anything to that.
I fully agree, and I think it also helps us in potentially minimizing dilution coming from the convertible notes. Remember that we have issued convertible notes that have a strike price of 18, and this is a fantastic way we are positive about the outlook of the company to minimizing that potential dilution.
Okay. Great. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Kemp Dolliver from Brookline Capital Markets. Kemp, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you, and good morning. Two questions. First is, where do the seed multiplication efforts you've discussed in the presentation put you know, relative to the fiscal 2024 and 2025 EBITDA goals? You know, essentially, you know, if I think, you know, thinking of it as, you know, percentage of target, where will this put you?
Hi, Kemp. Thank you for joining us, and thank you for the question. I think, obviously we're not halfway in terms of fiscal 2024 for wheat. The key here is to make sure we have enough inventories to reach those numbers in fiscal 2024. I think that even though the yields will be lower because of the significant drought, we will have those inventories in place. Drought is a top of mind aspect today in all partners in Argentina, so I don't think we'll have an issue placing those inventories in the current year so that we can reach the $15 million-$20 million next year from an EBITDA viewpoint.
The only caveat, if you will, is that we might rely a little heavier, or we might be depending a little more on the first generation materials compared to the second generation materials, which were the materials that we were just starting to multiply this season. We have limited inventories, and so the reduced yield because of the drought, in a way, doesn't allow us to go full speed ahead with those. This is not an issue when you're facing drought because the first generation materials have shown terrific benefits. It is something we need to clean up in the event of normal years or years where yields are expected to be high, so that we avoid any kind of yield drag in the overall performance.
That's the only thing I would say we need to readjust in the current season, but not affecting what we need to be the $15 million-$20 million guidance for fiscal 2024 needs.
Thank you. My second question is, what is the status of the joint venture talks between Trigall and S&W in Australia?
That's a great question. We're moving forward with that joint venture process. We are now finalizing the definitive agreements. It took us a little longer, but we expect to have these closed by the end of the year. We're starting to coordinate bringing activities with them, which has been ongoing since September already. We have not included this in the backlog, but it continues to be an important aspect of the Trigall opportunity in Australia.
Very good. Thank you. I will ask a third question, which is, are you going to miss doing the IAS 29 adjustments?
That's a great question, Kemp. No, we're not. Actually, it's even hard to pronounce. We're not gonna miss that at all. I guess if you want me to.
I will not. Thank you.
Thanks, Kemp.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Steven Ralston from Zacks. Steven, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, congratulations on a great quarter. My first question concerns your collaboration with Syngenta. Could you expand upon that and clarify some specifics, especially towards product lines? As I understood it was a very symbiotic relationship in Argentina, where you distributed Syngenta's fungicides and insecticides, the Maxim family and the Actellic family of products. In return, Syngenta distributed Rizobacter's seed treatment products. How is that changing? I know it's global and in some cases exclusive, you know, excluding the U.S. Could you also get into the specifics of the potential you see in China and Brazil?
Great. Thanks a lot, Steven, for joining the call and for the great question, regarding the Syngenta dynamics. As you described, in Argentina, we have achieved unprecedented success. We are by far the leaders in the inoculant business and also in the biopesticide side of the business in the seed treatments. I believe Syngenta has obtained in Argentina a level of molecule penetration that it can't match anywhere in the world. I think when you consider both channels, it's probably close to 40%-50%. That's something Syngenta was not able to replicate in other geographies for their active ingredients. The question was how do we scale these up internationally in a way that is attractive to both parties?
That's why we went into this long-term distribution collaboration that has an R&D component as well. The footprint that we have in Argentina, we don't have that footprint in Europe, we don't have that footprint in the United States, let alone Asia, like China or Australia. Being able to build that ourselves organically will take a long time. Being able to use Syngenta's existing footprint, I think can give us an opportunity to quickly penetrate those markets with a one product category where we have done this jointly in a very successful way. We are initially doing this only with inoculants and the Rizobacter part of the seed treatment portfolio. This is not saying that we're negating the opportunity to use Syngenta's footprint for the biopesticides, for instance, that come out of Marrone, but that is not today included.
That's something that we might discuss in the future. We might even consider other opportunities. This was kind of the starting point for us to truly penetrate that $4 million-$5 million market where biologicals are already at the 20% level. Significant part of that because of inoculants, where we are global leaders, and where we believe we can be at $1.6 billion, market-wide, in biological in general by the end of the decade. That's kind of the thesis behind the Syngenta collaboration. We are not going into a blinded relationship. We've known each other for 20 years, the positive and the negative. This is what we are, sort of now deciding to join me on a forward-going basis.
Thank you. Now turning to EBITDA. It seems like the major contributor was Crop Nutrition, and that's related to your micro-beaded fertilizer plant. I've noticed, well, last quarter and this quarter, you have not given out the 12-month trailing capacity utilization in your press release. It must be very high at the present time. Can you share that now? What are your plans there in the future? Because you should be getting very close to maximum capacity.
Hi, Steve. This is Federico. Thanks for joining the call, and thanks for your question. Yes, you're right. I mean, we have been ramping up the use of installed capacity. We had used a metric of LTM use of installed capacity to basically drive evolution on an asset that is most industrial in nature. The rest of our programs are not heavy relying on industrial assets or manufacturing facilities that are complex. That's the reason why we use that metric. We are standing today at close to 80% use of installed capacity. We can still use additional 20%, but that requires investing in working capital because this is a highly seasonal product. We are already looking, and I think that we discussed this on our last earnings.
We are already looking into expanding capacity in that plant. We are thrilled about how this product has rolled out into the market in Argentina and in the southern states of Brazil. We're looking into opportunities maybe in other markets, maybe in the northern states of Brazil, and why not even the U.S. at some point. Yes, we will need to do some investment. Now, it's not the same to start from scratch than to add capacity on what we already have. To continue expanding Latin America, we would be still doing module investments to ramp installed capacity up as we see that there's further demand for the product.
Thank you. I want to congratulate you on that, your strategy there on that plant, because basically it was a wasting asset with very low capacity utilization. Through your strategies, you've made it into a true cash generator. Thank you for taking my call.
Thank you, Steve. I mean, we know you've been tracking that part of the business closely, so it's great to see you recognize the progress there. We're also very proud to see that happening.
Thank you.
We have no further questions, so I'll hand back to Federico for any concluding remarks.
Okay. I wanna thank everyone for joining us today. For those that woke up at 5:00 A.M., a particular thank you because it's very early. We are really proud of the quarter we just finished, the progress that we're making, and hope to continue to sort of bring this type of results on a forward-going basis. It's gonna be challenging because the bar is high and the weather is not helping, so maybe a little bit of rain might help in Argentina despite our record investment. That's how important drought is for us from a technology viewpoint. But we are really happy to be where we are. Please feel free to reach out if you want additional information or follow up with any additional questions. Thank you, and have a great rest of your day.
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your line.