Bunge's Adjusted Profit Nearly Doubles as Oilseed Margins Hold Up
Bunge Global reported second-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.00 a share, up from $1.31 a year earlier, and raised its full-year guidance for the second consecutive quarter.
Bunge Global (BG) reported second-quarter net income attributable to the company of $678 million, up from $354 million a year earlier, as GAAP diluted earnings rose to $3.47 a share from $2.61. Adjusted earnings per share, which strips out mark-to-market swings and other one-time items, climbed to $2.00 from $1.31, and adjusted segment earnings before interest and taxes more than doubled to $796 million from $373 million.
The agribusiness and food ingredients company again identified its Soybean and Softseed Processing and Refining business as the primary driver of the improvement, the same segment it credited in the first quarter. Two consecutive quarters identifying the same unit as the main earnings engine point to durable crush margins rather than a one-off swing, underpinning the confidence behind Bunge's guidance increases.
The quarter also marked a sharp reversal from the first three months of the year, when GAAP diluted earnings per share fell to $0.35 from $1.48 a year earlier even though adjusted earnings were roughly flat at $1.83 versus $1.81. That gap traced to a mark-to-market timing charge of $1.28 a share, against just $0.08 in the prior-year period, a paper loss on hedging positions that management treats as noise in its adjusted results. Net income attributable to Bunge climbed from $68 million in the first quarter to $678 million in the second, and adjusted diluted earnings per share rose from $1.83 to $2.00 over the same span, showing the mark-to-market drag reversing as the year progressed.
Bunge raised its full-year adjusted earnings guidance for the second straight quarter, to a range of $9.25 to $9.75 a share from $9.00 to $9.50 set after the first quarter, itself an increase from an original $7.50 to $8.00. The steady upward revisions track the segment-level strength in oilseed processing and give investors a clearer read on management's confidence in margins holding through the back half of the year.
Bunge also closed out capital-return commitments tied to its 2025 acquisition of Viterra, finishing a $2 billion share repurchase program in the second quarter with roughly $250 million of buybacks in the period. The company separately raised its quarterly dividend by two cents a share to $0.72, or $2.88 annualized, an increase approved at its May annual meeting.
The most consequential disclosure in the current release, though, involves financing rather than operations. Bunge priced a $600 million offering of senior unsecured notes due 2031 at a 5.000% coupon through its finance subsidiary, with proceeds earmarked for general corporate purposes, including debt repayment and refinancing, working capital, capital expenditures, and stock repurchases. The offering did not appear in any of the prior three quarterly releases, marking a new capital-markets move that follows directly on the heels of the completed Viterra buyback program. With the $2 billion repurchase authorization now spent, the new notes give Bunge fresh flexibility to keep repurchasing shares or manage its debt load, a signal worth watching as the company works through the back half of a year in which its core processing segment has driven two straight quarters of upgraded guidance.