Replies to post #8606 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

MON FY3Q14 items…

PR on quarterly results, 5-year guidance, and new $10B buyback:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/building-expected-strong-fy14-monsanto-121900916.html

CC slides (22 pages):
http://www.monsanto.com/investors/Documents/2014/2014.06.25_MON_Q3F14_Earnings.pdf

PR on new debt offering (to partially fund the $10B share buyback):
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/monsanto-announces-intention-begin-debt-130000810.html

[DewDiligence]

MON prices $4.5B of bonds (including 50-year tranche): #msg-103764173.

[DewDiligence]

MON probably gained market share vs DD recently:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dupont-lowers-operating-earnings-outlook-200500672.html

Today DuPont announced that the company is revising its outlook for operating earnings per share for the second quarter and full year 2014, due primarily to lower than expected quarterly performance of its Agriculture and, to a lesser extent, Performance Chemicals segments.

Both companies are reporting soft corn sales, but MON—unlike DD—is making up the difference with strong soybean sales, especially in South America, where the Intacta product is having a very strong rollout.

(Note: It’s hard to make a direct timing comparison between MON and DD because they operate on different fiscal calendars. MON’s quarterly results announced this week were for the period ending 5/31/14, while DD’s lowered guidance is for the quarter ending 6/30/14.)

[DewDiligence]

XON acquires (private) Trans Ova Genetics for $90M:

#msg-103914727

Although XON (a biotech startup—not to be confused with XOM) is not the kind of stock ordinarily discussed here, the stated impetus for the acquisition of Trans Ova falls right in with the investing theme of this board.

[DewDiligence]

MON inks deal with JPM/GS for the first $6B of $11B share buyback:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/monsanto-company-announces-6-billion-212900276.html

Monsanto Company announced that it has entered into accelerated share repurchase (ASR) agreements with JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Goldman, Sachs & Co. to repurchase an aggregate of $6 billion of the company’s common stock. Today’s ASR is part of Monsanto’s share repurchase programs under which an additional $10 billion of authority was recently announced on June 25, 2014.

Under the terms of the ASR agreements, Monsanto will repurchase $3 billion of its common stock from each of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Goldman, Sachs & Co., with an aggregate initial delivery of approximately 38.6 million shares based on current market prices. The final number of shares to be repurchased will be based on Monsanto’s volume-weighted average stock price during the term of the transaction, less a discount.

The [ASR] program is expected to be completed in up to nine months.

Adding the $1B remaining on MON’s old buyback authorization brings MON’s total planned buybacks to $11B: the $6B, 9-month “ASR” described above and an additional $5B in due course.

The approximately 39M shares to be repurchased via the ASR during the next 9 months represent a little more than 7% of MON’s total shares outstanding.

[DewDiligence]

MON increases dividend 14% to annualized payout of $1.96 (vs previous $1.72):

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/monsanto-board-approves-increase-quarterly-204000634.html

At the current share price, the new payout represents a yield of 1.7%.

MON has never had a high dividend yield, but it has increased the dividend by 85% since 2010.

[DewDiligence]

MON issues FY2015 non-GAAP EPS guidance of $5.75-6.00, +10-15% vs FY2014. This guidance is consistent with MON’s 5-year outlook mentioned in #msg-103709983.

Slide deck from today’s FY4Q14 CC:
http://www.monsanto.com/investors/Documents/2015/2014.10.08_MON-Q4FY14-Earnings.pdf

p.s. MON’s fiscal year ends Aug 31.