Ag Growth International Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 30, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: North American farm improved: Farm revenue rose 10% and adjusted EBITDA increased 12%, while North American farm revenue grew 16% as dealer inventories normalized and demand strengthened for portable and permanent equipment.
  • Negative Sentiment: Commercial markets remained weak: Commercial revenue fell 17% and adjusted EBITDA declined to CAD 19 million, with lower project activity, utilization, and margins across North America, EMEA, and parts of Asia-Pacific.
  • Negative Sentiment: Near-term outlook is cautious: Management expects the second half and full-year 2026 to be pressured by continued commercial softness, weakness in North America and India, and the absence of new large-scale Brazilian turnkey projects.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cost reduction and cash-generation initiatives are progressing: AGI remains on track to deliver more than CAD 30 million in annualized structural savings, monetized approximately CAD 106 million of Brazilian receivables, and expects more than CAD 20 million from asset sales in the second half to support debt repayment.
  • Negative Sentiment: Leverage and order visibility remain concerns: Net leverage was 5.2 times at quarter-end and the order book fell 22% year over year to CAD 516 million; AGI also identified impairment indicators in parts of its North American commercial and Brazil businesses.
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Earnings Conference Call
Ag Growth International Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the AGI second quarter 2026 results conference call and webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypads. As a courtesy to management and other participants on the call, we do ask that you please limit yourselves to two questions. Please note that lines will be muted after two questions, and you are welcome to rejoin the queue if you have further questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may reach an operator by pressing star and zero.

Operator

Before we begin, we caution listeners that this call may contain forward-looking information and discussion, that actual results could differ materially from such forecasts or projections. Further, in preparing the forward-looking information, certain material factors and assumptions were used by management. Additional information about the material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forecasts or projections, the material factors and assumptions used by management in preparing the forward-looking information are contained in our fourth quarter MD&A press release, which are available on the AGI website. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Paul Brisebois, President and CEO of AGI. Please go ahead, sir.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Thank you, operator, good morning, everyone. I am pleased to speak with you today about AGI's second quarter 2026 results. Joining me is Nicolle Parker, our interim Chief Financial Officer, who will walk you through some of our second quarter financial metrics in more detail during her prepared remarks. As we've discussed over the last several quarters, AGI continues to operate in a cyclical environment, 2026 is unfolding against a persistent backdrop of uncertainty across North American and global agricultural markets. Our results reflect two very different realities across the business. On one hand, our North American farm business continued to improve, delivering double-digit revenue growth and EBITDA expansion. On the other hand, commercial markets remain soft globally, particularly in North America, EMEA, and certain international regions, resulting in lower project activity and margin pressure.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

While we are not satisfied with the overall financial performance, we are encouraged by the actions we are taking to strengthen the business, improve our balance sheet, position AGI for long-term value creation. Let me begin with an overview of our Q2 results. At a segment level, our Q2 featured a continuation of the trend from the first quarter, with farm picking up year-over-year while conditions in commercial slowed. Farm delivered a solid quarter, with revenue up 10% to CAD 140 million and adjusted EBITDA up 12% to CAD 33 million. The most encouraging aspect of the quarter was the continued improvement we are seeing within our North American farm business. Farm revenue increased 16% year-over-year, driven by both the U.S. and Canada. We experienced stronger demand conditions for portable equipment in the U.S. and permanent storage and handling equipment in Canada.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Farm EBITDA increased and margins remained strong, demonstrating the leverage and profitability of the business as demand begins to improve. While we are not yet calling a full agricultural cycle recovery, we believe the market is stabilizing and we are seeing encouraging signals from customers and channel partners. The commercial segment, by contrast, remained under pressure. Revenue declined 17% to CAD 183 million and adjusted EBITDA fell to CAD 19 million. Commercial performance continued to be impacted by lower customer investment levels and reduced project activity as geopolitical uncertainty, including ongoing conflicts in key regions, continues to weigh on customer confidence, financing conditions, and the timing of capital deployment. Across North America, EMEA, and portions of Asia Pacific, customers remain cautious and are delaying capital spending decisions. This resulted in lower revenue, lower plant utilization, and reduced margin performance versus last year.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

On a consolidated basis, while a pickup in U.S. farm activity and cost savings initiatives served to partially offset some of the softness in commercial, overall adjusted EBITDA was CAD 43 million, down 20%, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.4%, a decline of roughly 217 basis points from last year. Outside of our quarterly results, we continue executing several initiatives designed to improve the organizational effectiveness and earnings power of AGI. Our structural cost reduction program remains on track, and we continue to target over CAD 30 million of annualized savings, with a large majority of this amount already in hand. Importantly, these savings are largely structural and are tied to permanent changes in organizational design and footprint rather than temporary spending deferrals. This means that volume recovery should drive incremental margin recovery on top of these savings.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

These are sustainable improvements that will enhance margins and cash flow over time. Outside of cost containment actions, we have taken some tactical steps to capture incremental volume growth across the business. For example, in Q2, we initiated a strategic facility consolidation plan in the U.S. aimed at regaining historical storage and material handling volumes lost in the U.S. market. As part of this consolidation, we are making a measured capital investment to restart our grain bin business out of our Clay Center, Kansas facility. Even as the broader farm market remains soft, this is a deliberate high-return move to recover storage and material handling volumes we have ceded in the U.S. market.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

By retooling Clay Center for bin line production and establishing it as a center of excellence for North American farm manufacturing, we restore delivery certainty, can introduce a standardized North American bin design, and create freight consolidation benefits our dealers have specifically asked for. The associated CapEx is modest, phased over roughly nine months from the second half of 2026 into the first half of 2027, and is more than covered by the expected proceeds from unused facility and asset sales underway as part of the same facility consolidation initiative. We announced this facility realignment in June, and we view it as an example of investing selectively behind the parts of the business where we can win even in a down cycle. Moving on to a few comments on governance and leadership matters.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Reflecting the board's continued focus on maximizing shareholder value, we have formally established a strategic review committee comprised of independent directors who will oversee a formal review of the range of strategic alternatives and options available to the company. The committee's mandate is straightforward: carefully assess opportunities that could maximize long-term value for all shareholders. This review reinforces our commitment to maintaining a disciplined and objective approach toward capital allocation, portfolio optimization, and value creation. While the process is ongoing, our management team remains focused on executing our operating plan and delivering results. Finally, we strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Haaris Uddin as Chief Financial Officer, effective August 4th, 2026. We welcome Haaris to the team and look forward to his official start date next week.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

I also want to personally thank Nicolle Parker for her leadership and partnership throughout the transition process and for her significant contributions to the business. The finance organization remains in her capable hands as we continue executing our transformation and deleveraging priorities. Looking ahead, our outlook reflects the same divergence we saw this quarter. In farm, conditions are showing early signs of stabilization, but the pickup in activity remains modest, is measured against a very low base, and it is too early to call a definitive turn in the cycle. We'll continue to stay close to our dealers, support their stocking and in-season needs, and watch order intake closely for a more durable signal of recovery. In commercial, we expect continued softness, with pressure concentrated in North America and India, alongside the absence of new large-scale comprehensive project contributions in Brazil.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Taken together, the combination of a still guarded farm recovery, continued commercial softness, and the strategy shift in Brazil are expected to weigh on second half and full-year results relative to the prior year. Stepping back into the bigger picture, while current order environment remains below prior year levels and market visibility continues to be limited in several regions, we believe that as volumes eventually recover and as the cycle strengthens, the benefits of our structurally reduced cost base will drive an outsized improvement in earnings performance. In closing, we recognize that current market conditions remain uneven, particularly in our commercial business, and we are taking decisive actions to strengthen AGI's foundation. Our farm business is showing encouraging signs of recovery. Our cost reduction initiatives are progressing, and we are working to transform our balance sheet through debt reduction and asset optimization. Most importantly, we are creating options.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Every dollar of debt repaid, every dollar of cost removed, and every operational improvement we make increases AGI's strategic flexibility and long-term value potential. We recognize that our shareholders expect results, and we remain intensely focused on delivering them. The work we are doing today is positioning AGI to emerge stronger, more resilient, and better positioned to generate sustainable returns through the cycle. We believe the intrinsic value of AGI is not reflected in our current valuation. Our objective is straightforward: stay disciplined operationally, unlock the value embedded in our business, and deliver meaningful long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you to our employees, customers, partners, and shareholders for your continued support and confidence in AGI. I'll now hand the call over to Nicolle.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I'll focus my remarks on the following areas: our leverage position, margins for the quarter, free cash flow, order book, and impairments. Our leverage ratio was 5.2x at the end of Q2, effectively flat quarter-over-quarter. While we are focused on bringing this down over time, the flat result this quarter reflects the offsetting dynamics of softer trailing EBITDA against the benefit of applying long-term receivable proceeds to debt reduction. With the majority of our Brazil monetization proceeds now directed toward our senior credit facilities, asset sales and disciplined free cash flow will further support our deleveraging objectives. Turning to margin performance for the quarter, consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin declined 217 basis points from 15.6%-13.4%. The primary driver was commercial, where margin compressed 602 basis points from 16.6%-10.6%, reflecting lower volumes across the commercial segment.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

Farm was a partial offset, with margins expanding modestly, supported by higher volumes and the benefit of our cost-saving initiatives. Our other corporate segment also improved year-over-year, reflecting the structural cost actions taken across our corporate footprint. The bottom line is that margin performance this quarter is fundamentally a function of low commercial volume, and volume recovery remains the key ingredient for the full return to typical commercial margins. On free cash flow, we saw a meaningful improvement this quarter, driven largely by the monetization of long-term accounts receivable in Brazil. We have now completed approximately CAD 106 million of long-term accounts receivable monetization, with proceeds applied to reduce borrowings under our senior credit facility and to fund the final stages of certain Brazil contracts. This represents the majority, but not all, of anticipated proceeds from the monetization program. Importantly, we expect more to come.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

As we consolidate facilities and rationalize the business, a number of locations and assets are in the process of being sold, we expect to monetize more than CAD 20 million in the third and fourth quarters, more than covering the capital requirements for our U.S. consolidation initiative, with funds to spare for debt repayment. Combined with our structural cost savings and a disciplined approach to capital allocation, these actions are expected to support a stronger free cash flow profile as we move forward. One of our key corporate priorities is to generate consistent free cash flow, an initiative we are executing as we continue to restructure and simplify operations. A few comments on our order book. We ended the quarter at CAD 516 million, down 22% year-over-year. The composition of our order book tells the same divergent story as our results.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

On the farm side, North America continues to strengthen. North America Portable was up 77%, and North America Farm Permanent up roughly 16%, providing improved near-term visibility as demand stabilizes in certain areas. The order book pressure remains concentrated in commercial. North America Commercial, EMEA, and India all face challenging market conditions that have slowed customer decision-making, which ultimately impacts order intake and our reported order book. In short, North America Farm is beginning to turn, that improvement is currently outweighed by continued softness across our commercial and international markets. Finally, during Q2, management identified impairment indicators within certain commercial segment businesses. These included the food platform within North America Commercial Operations as well as within our Brazil business. These developments reflect evolving demand conditions, margin pressure, operating outlook changes, and strategic decisions made since the most recent annual impairment assessment. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

Operator, we can now open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the analyst question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypads. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. As a reminder, please limit yourselves to two questions and rejoin the question queue if you have further questions. Our first question today comes from Gary Ho from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Gary Ho
Research Analyst, Financial Services at Desjardins Capital Markets

Thanks. Good morning. My first question, I want to chat a little bit about the North American Farm. It grew 16% with the order book up again year-over-year. Can you maybe unpack how much of that is just dealer inventory normalization versus the true retail demand underneath, and any read into how the early order program may look like in the second half. What would you need to see to call a more definitive turn in the cycle? Is it just better commodity prices, farmers' income? What are other things we should look at?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Hi, Gary. Thanks for the question. Good question. I would say in general, I'm feeling a little more optimistic on the farm business. Obviously, 16% growth in the North American business was favorable for us. What that means is that dealers are restocking because inventories are coming down. In general, as we do inventory counts across North America, we see that inventories are coming down. We're prepped right now going into harvest in terms of loading up our stock points, warehouses, and dealers for the harvest. I would say that on average, we're expecting an average crop across North America. I was just out in Saskatchewan last week, and in fact, they probably have better crops than they've had in the past because of the moisture that they've had and the heat recently.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Sometimes if it gets too hot now, they're going to ask for some more rain, but that's just the way farming goes, right? Right now, we're seeing commodity prices come up slightly, particularly on canola, wheat. Corn still seems a little suppressed. In general, feeling more optimistic about the farm market. Not ready to call that it's a complete turn. We'll see how harvest goes. If harvest goes well, we see a lot of demand and pull-through, particularly on our portable business. We'll be set up well going into early order program, as you mentioned, and expect that early order program would be better than previous year. We're also, just to add from a storage perspective, seeing some last-minute demand really. Some of the barriers to doing more would be on accessibility of build crews versus having the capacity to fulfill the orders.

Gary Ho
Research Analyst, Financial Services at Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay, great. No, thanks. Thanks for those. Maybe just in terms of your outlook commentary from your release yesterday. It sounds like it's still a bit unclear for the second half, kind of waiting on results. Should we take that to mean kind of similar softness in Q3 EBITDA as you've experienced in Q2? Just any help there would be great.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

I would say the story would be similar H1-H2. We see continued progression on the farm business and continued challenge on the commercial business.

Gary Ho
Research Analyst, Financial Services at Desjardins Capital Markets

Okay, great. Those are my two. Thanks for your time.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

You're welcome.

Operator

Our next question comes from Steven Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

Yeah, good morning, guys. Thanks for the time, appreciate it. Paul, maybe just a couple. Is just any specific timeline that you think you can provide with more clarity on the strategic review and sort of how you expect those milestones to unfold? What do you need to effectively get done in the short term before you can think you can go out with a more broader process? Just trying to understand the process and thinking here between short term and medium term on it at all.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Steve. The strategic review committee has now been together for about six weeks or so. They're making good progress evaluating essentially what management has pulled together to date, and then really taking a hard look at debt and understanding how do we refinance our debt and move this forward. We have some debentures that come due, one at the end of this year and a couple in 2027. It's really difficult to have hard timelines with regards to what that looks like. All options are being considered. In particular, asset sales and sales of non-core assets that we have in the queue. We talked about them previously. We are making progress on it, but it just takes time with regards to finalizing the transactions if they were to take place going forward.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

Understood. That's helpful. Just wanted to dig in a little bit more into the U.S. consolidation strategy that you described and growing the footprint in storage and handling. I might have missed some of your earlier prepared remarks, I apologize, but just want to understand the true intention there and why that strategy is going forward. I understand it's self-funding. You're going to have some other assets to dispose to fund it, but is really the core objective? Is it efficiency-based? Is it capacity-based to skirt tariffs? I'm just trying to understand the core objectives of the strategy. Thanks.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Yeah. Thanks, Steven. Good question. As we did the consolidation in 2025, shutting down our Grand Island facility, moving production into St. Boniface out of Canada, it was more challenging than we anticipated, particularly in dealer conversion. We've been fortunate enough to do well in our northern states in terms of shipping product into what historically we've done pretty good business in out of Canada. The conversion of dealers that were in that Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, kind of a poor Midwest area, was more difficult than anticipated. Then we had the addition of tariffs that had a significant impact. Tariffs alone aren't the issue, it's just the paperwork that goes into that, the ability to deliver on time in full because of that paperwork, and the tariffs had us pause and take another look at what we needed to do.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Given the fact that we still had our bin manufacturing equipment that was uninstalled from Grand Island, we had the flexibility of reinstating this into one of our facilities. The Clay Center facility is a 300,000 sq ft facility. It definitely has the capacity to produce bins and put that equipment in. Our dealers love the idea of consolidating permanent handling and storage for farm for our dealers into that one facility. It really sets us up well to address more of the Southern Midwest and Eastern states versus what we could do out of St. Boniface. The other benefit of it is because we're going to a standardized bin, we have some redundancy in our equipment, which is really beneficial to us. Without redundancy, we have situations at times where equipment goes down, and it really impacts our ability to deliver on time in full.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

As you know from previous calls, customer focus is very important for me and our organization. This redundancy will allow us to have more flexibility in terms of delivering on time in full.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

That's very helpful. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Cowen. Please go ahead with your question.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Thank you. Good morning. First question is just on the outlook. You provided some commentary about your expectations for commercial to weigh on the second half of the year as well as full year 2026 relative to the prior year. I guess I'm wondering from an EBITDA perspective, the prior year comp looks quite tough in the third quarter, not quite as tough in the fourth quarter. Given sort of some of the dynamics you're seeing and again, the fact the comp isn't as tough and you're going to have more cost savings flowing through by the fourth quarter, do you expect there's any scenario here where by the fourth quarter you could be back to sort of flat year-over-year EBITDA or potentially even up? Or is the thinking here that you're still down in the fourth quarter?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

It's a good question. Thanks, Michael. I would say right now it's difficult to call. We believe that H2 will be a similar story to H1. The reality is we have the Brazilian SPE business that is coming to the end at the end of Q4. Just with regards to order book and how we look at that, to make some additional comments, right now we're at 22% below. If we take out those SPEs from previous year, we'd be about 18%. The reality is, doing that year-over-year comparison, we're going to continue to see less in our order book because of those SPEs. The reality is we're choosing to do that because we want quality of revenue, risk-adjusted returns, cash flow over the order book.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

I may have veered off away from the EBITDA question, but order book is a big component of that. In general, I would say H2 is similar to H1 right now, and until we get better visibility on the return of the farm business and what early order program looks like, it's hard to change that view.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. For the second question, you touched on the balance sheet and some of the maturing debentures and convertible debentures in the context of some commentary around the strategic review committee. Can you just elaborate a little bit on, I guess, first off, how the committee and yourselves are thinking about this CAD 85 million debenture at year end plus, I guess, the converts also for next year? It sounded like there was some mention of potentially being able to use some of the proceeds from these asset sales. I'm not sure if it's just the CAD 20 million less whatever you spend on this low CapEx U.S. project, or if there's more opportunity there. How are you thinking about, I guess, the refinancing or repayment of, first and foremost, the CAD 85 million?

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

What are the options and sort of the highest likely options that you're evaluating there?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Yeah. The strategic review committee is looking at all the options in terms of future debentures, what that could look like. Looking at timing of our asset sales and what the impact has on, I guess, paying down that debenture. Looking at the larger asset sales and timing of when that happens. Yeah. At this time, difficult to comment on exactly how we're going to address it. There are definitely lots of options that we're considering and working with our lenders in terms of what the best option is to move forward.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Wong from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Andrew Wong
Andrew Wong
Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to ask more on free cash flow and your thoughts longer term. What would be a reasonable free cash flow conversion from EBITDA as longer term target as we work through some of the transition here? Regarding CapEx, what's a longer-term CapEx number that you'd need to sustain the business? Thanks.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Well, free cash flow is very important to us. Had a very positive quarter with regards to monetizing the Brazil dollars that came in. We're happy with the direction that we're going on free cash flow. It's critical for our board that we focus on free cash flow and debt reduction. In terms of giving a number or a target, very difficult to do on a go-forward basis. Just know that that's one of our highest priorities with regards to free cash flow. Nicolle is going to give a little more information here.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

Yeah. We expect for 2026 to have a free cash flow going forward. With how Paul keeps talking about the monetization of the assets going forward, that also helps us with our working capital alignment now. We're also in very good shape for 2026. Again, just a free cash flow positive for the remaining of 2026.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

I think the other part of that was just on CapEx. The CapEx that we're spending on the Clay Center facility for moving into the bins is minimal. We're going to continue to watch our CapEx very closely and minimize that until we have some significant forward momentum with regards to debt reduction.

Nicolle Parker
Interim CFO at AGI

Also there will be very little investment left with our Brazil large turnkey project. All of those things will help us going forward.

Andrew Wong
Andrew Wong
Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. For the strategic review, I understand a lot of focus on just right now addressing the debt and the converts that are coming up. Can you just talk about what else might be considered? Is there anything that's a little bit more substantial, like entering other market segments, maybe doing something more structural in how the business works going forward, like farm versus commercial? Is there any consideration on splitting the business there? Can you just help us understand what else is being looked at?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Yeah. It's a great question. Not one that we can specifically answer, and I'm not formally on the strategic review committee. I can tell you with the leadership of Gary Anderson from a founder perspective and really understanding the business well in terms of what we were in the past and a very successful company, the goal is to get back to our roots, simplify our business, focus on our customers, and generate cash to pay down debt. That's what management's really focused on. That's what our board's more focused on. That's what the strategic review committee is focused on. With Gary's leadership and the background of George Armoyan and Mick MacBean from a financing perspective, we feel like we have the right dynamic there to really help us assess all strategic alternatives. There are many strategic alternatives that are being considered at this time.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

The benefit that it gives me personally and our management team is we can focus on running the business and executing on exactly what I was talking about, simplifying the business, focusing on our customers, and generating cash to pay down debt. We have big objectives in terms of doing greater than CAD 30 million in annualized cost reductions. We're on track to do that, and we continue to focus on doing more than that. We want to set up our business on a go-forward basis that we see a significant turnaround going into 2027.

Andrew Wong
Andrew Wong
Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Appreciate all that. Thank you.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

You're welcome.

Operator

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. Our next question comes from Tim Monachello from ATB Cormark Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Tim Monachello
Tim Monachello
Managing Director of Institutional Equity Research for Energy and Industrial Services and Technology at ATB Cormark Capital Markets

Hey, good morning. I wanted to touch on the commercial outlook. Looks like there's a lot of moving pieces here, and there's some good qualification in the release. In terms of quantifying the moving pieces across regions, I'm wondering if you can give a little bit more detail. Sounds like India is facing some challenges around rice inventories. The U.S.'s biggest demand is suffering, and there's a little bit of pricing sessions happening in the market. You've got the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the war in Iran. Between all of those factors, I'm curious which ones are the most impactful on the leading edge for demand and margins in the commercial segment?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Hey, Tim. Thanks for the question. You got it all right with regards to what the challenges are. It's really difficult. We have wars that are happening or geopolitical events. We have tariffs, we have weather that's impacting the business. Those are all things we can't control. We're focused on what we can control, which is the cost in our business, the focus on our customers and paying down debt. That's number one. If I speak about EMEA for a moment, you mentioned Ukraine-Russia as an ongoing impact to the business. When that first started, Cristiano Carpin, who leads our business in EMEA, he really focused on doing business in Africa and the Middle East, and did an excellent job with regards to shifting those priorities.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

With the Iran conflict, Middle East has really been a challenge, and that's what we're seeing is now we've got two markets that are being challenged, and Africa is even being a little slow. You include, from India perspective, Iran being one of our largest importers of rice has an impact in terms of rice stocks. The rice milling business is struggling. From a North American basis, what we're seeing and what we're encouraged by is that our win rate is actually quite high in the business, but it's smaller projects. We're not seeing the big projects that we've had in the past in terms of executing on them. They're being delayed. They're in the queue but being delayed, and that's been a struggle in the business.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

I believe similar to our farm business, how we're seeing it come back in 2026 versus 2025, I believe that we'll see our commercial business really start to come back in 2027.

Tim Monachello
Tim Monachello
Managing Director of Institutional Equity Research for Energy and Industrial Services and Technology at ATB Cormark Capital Markets

Okay. That's helpful. In terms of commercial margins, you saw a little bit of a sequential uptick from Q1. Do you think that that progress sequentially will continue through the back half of the year as you start to reap some cost benefits? Or do you think that the downdraft in top line could continue to create some margin headwinds?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

We continue to be diligent with regards to managing our costs. What we need is volume improvement to improve our margin profile. That's why we're actively pursuing the business, which even though it could be at more aggressive prices because it's a smaller market and fewer opportunities, helps with absorption. The goal is continuous improvement on that margin profile, particularly in our commercial business.

Tim Monachello
Tim Monachello
Managing Director of Institutional Equity Research for Energy and Industrial Services and Technology at ATB Cormark Capital Markets

All right. I appreciate the comments.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Thanks, Tim.

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up from Steven Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead with your follow-up. Steve, is it possible that your phone is on mute?

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

Yeah. Thanks, guys. Sorry. I just want to circle back to Brazil commercial for a minute, just make sure the language is right. I know in the past you've described the large turnkey projects as part of the challenge. I think you referred to some other acronyms here in the call, Paul. I just want to clarify, how much of the backlog still consists of those large turnkeys that you're trying to work down? I think I recall a number close to CAD 100 million in the past, but where do we sit today in terms of working those off?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

It's about CAD 40 million in terms of that backlog. What I've been really pleased with on the Brazilian business, which is led by Justin Paterson, he's done a very good job of converting over from those large turnkey financed projects to more traditional projects where we're supplying the equipment, we're supplying contractor services, but we're not supplying the financing on that. That's the goal for us going forward. Specifically, when I think about order book and that change year-over-year, order book will be lower, particularly as we look at our Brazil business because we had such high business on those turnkey financed projects. As we do more of the traditional, even though we're building that up, it's going to be lower. The positive side of that, it's quality of revenue, it's risk-adjusted returns, and it's cash flow positive.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

It's by design that we're making those changes.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

Understood. I don't think any of us want to see a big backlog just for the sake of a backlog. It's got to be accretive and positive cash flow. Just one last follow-on, if I may, is just around the monetization efforts. Is it a couple more quarters you expect to work that down? You've actually had some decent progress late on the AR. I'm trying to get a sense for how much more time you need to go through that process.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

We mentioned it in H2, the asset sales, land sales, facility sales that we have in the queue, we believe that we'll execute on in H2. That's going to be at least CAD 20 million for us. The other components possibly could hit Q4, again, it comes down to valuation that we get on those assets. We're not looking at giving away assets. There needs to be the right value associated with the non-core assets that we're looking at exiting.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

Appreciate that. Maybe just one last one, just because we're on the topic, is the broader strategic review question is: Do you think the complexity of the organization today is a hindrance to an ultimate sale process or a broader strategic review sale? Or do you need to focus and, again, maybe shrink to grow or some respect like that? Do you need to have India as part of the mix, for example? Could you shrink down Brazil to a size that makes it more palatable for others? Is it sold in pieces? How do you think about that broader strategic review as you look at the options today?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Steven Hansen, I appreciate your thoughts on it. You might have to give Gary Anderson a call and talk to the strategic review committee with regards to what that looks like. I can't speculate with regards to whether we look more attractive as a smaller business versus the current business that we have. What I do know is that we've built up a good business over time that's focused on being a global player in storage handling, conditioning, and processing with farm and commercial segments. That has played out well for us in the past. We're in a position now where we are more complex than we need to be, so that's what we're working on from an operational perspective to simplify the business.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

As we simplify the business, which is the right thing to do for us operationally, I'm not sure if that becomes more attractive or not, but we think that it's going to benefit our business, and that's what we're focused on is just resetting our business and making our business strong again.

Steven Hansen
Steven Hansen
Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James

No, I appreciate it. That's a good answer to a difficult question. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Tupholme, a follow-up question from TD Cowen. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Thank you for taking the follow-up. The question is just about the CAD 30 million of cost savings or over CAD 30 million of cost savings target. Are you able to provide a bit of a breakdown as to some of the main buckets that comprise that CAD 30 million? I'm thinking perhaps about can we split that up across the various segments and corporate costs? Is there a way to do that? Then also just curious where you are at. It sounded like you said you had a good chunk sort of in place, but what was the annual run rate that would've been in place come the end of the second quarter?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Yeah. Not sure on the annual run. We are tracking to be greater than the CAD 30 million. The reality is we've reduced our executive team, which is a big chunk of it, from 17 down to seve. We've continued to restructure corporately our business. We focused. It's been a reduction on corporate in terms of what we're doing from that perspective, looking at really everything that we do from a spend perspective in terms of IT spend, finance spend, facility spend. Based on that, we will continue to track how we're progressing on that CAD 30 million and more. We feel that through this simplification process, that we can exceed that number quite easily going forward without giving any more specifics.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. That's helpful. Just to be clear, though, I think you previously said in maybe the last quarter, these are expected to be fully in place, the full CAD 30 million, by year-end such that you get that full benefit in 2027?

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Correct.

Michael Tupholme
Michael Tupholme
Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

At this time, ensuring no additional questions, we'll conclude today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Paul Brisebois for any closing remarks.

Paul Brisebois
President and CEO at AGI

Thank you everyone for joining. I appreciate the time. We're making decisive actions to improve the quality and resilience of our business. Our board and our management team is very aligned in terms of what we need to do, our near-term focus is on executing on the business and the plan, cash generation, reducing our leverage, and restoring investor confidence as we move forward. Thank you all for joining.

Operator

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Analysts
    • Paul Brisebois
      President and CEO at AGI
    • Nicolle Parker
      Interim CFO at AGI
    • Gary Ho
      Research Analyst, Financial Services at Desjardins Capital Markets
    • Steven Hansen
      Managing Director and Equity Analyst at Raymond James
    • Michael Tupholme
      Director of Equity Research and Senior Analyst at TD Cowen
    • Andrew Wong
      Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
    • Tim Monachello
      Managing Director of Institutional Equity Research for Energy and Industrial Services and Technology at ATB Cormark Capital Markets
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