ADM opened a new production facility in Valencia, Spain; signed a joint venture agreement with Marel; signed a Strategic Development Agreement with Air Protein; opened a Customer Creation and Innovation Center in Manchester, England; launched a growth initiative of its re:generations™ regenerative agriculture program; and announced a strategic partnership with Solugen.

ADM's strategic plan of sustainable growth leverages the trends and technologies in sustainability to help the Company grow and create value for its stakeholders. This includes traceability of sourcing, low carbon agricultural practices, and decarbonization efforts.

In 2023, ADM expanded its regenerative agriculture program to cover two million acres across 18 U.S. states and Canada and also extended the program into new geographies, launching regenerative agriculture projects in Europe and South America, with a goal to enroll four million acres globally by 2025.

The Company identified a material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting related to accounting practices and procedures for segment disclosures. The material weakness resulted from inadequate controls that allowed for certain intersegment sales to be reported at amounts not approximating market.

While the Company has developed a remediation plan, the Company will not be able to conclude whether the steps the Company is taking will remediate the material weakness until a sustained period of time has passed to allow management to test the design and operational effectiveness of the new controls.

The Company continues to cooperate with the SEC. Following the Company's January 21, 2024 announcement of the Investigation, the Company received voluntary document requests from the Department of Justice (the DOJ) focused primarily on the same subject matter, and the DOJ directed grand jury subpoenas to certain current and former Company employees.

The Company is facing securities litigation and could face additional litigation under federal and state securities laws or other claims arising from the Investigation, such litigation can be costly to defend, and if decided against the Company, such litigation could require the Company to pay substantial judgments or settlements.

The Company cannot predict when these investigations will be completed, nor can it predict the results of these investigations. Expenses incurred in connection with these investigations could adversely affect the Company's liquidity position.

The Company may be unable to remediate this material weakness in a timely manner, which could adversely impact the accuracy and timeliness of future reports and filings the Company makes with the SEC.

The Company faces significant competition in each of its businesses and has numerous competitors, who can be different depending upon each of the business segments in which it participates.

Given the commodity-based nature of many of its businesses, the Company, on an ongoing basis, focuses on managing unit costs and improving efficiency through technology improvements, productivity enhancements, and regular evaluation of the Company's asset portfolio.

The Nutrition business is a vertically integrated business that provides ingredients and solutions for human, animal, and pet in a highly competitive environment with a variety of companies offering the same products and services.

The Company's operating costs and the selling prices of certain finished products are sensitive to changes in energy prices, inflationary pressures, and certain logistic constraints.

ADM uses coal-fired cogeneration technology to meet a sizeable portion of its energy demand. The Company is working to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations and making capital investments in its facilities and new technologies.

Given the commodity-based nature of many of its businesses, the Company, on an ongoing basis, focuses on managing unit costs and improving efficiency through technology improvements, productivity enhancements, and regular evaluation of the Company's asset portfolio.

ADM's R&D efforts focus on creating science-based products, solutions, and technologies aligned with macro trends in food security, sustainable processes, health, and personalized nutrition. R&D expense, net of reimbursements of government grants, for the year ended December 31, 2023 was $256 million.

The Company's internal R&D network, consisting of approximately 1,600 talented employees, is dedicated to transforming aspirations into solutions and brand innovation.

ADM plans to support the three pillars with investments in technology, which include expanding digital capabilities and investing further in research and development.

The Company anticipates spending between $360 million and $490 million on capital projects to achieve the Strive 35 targets. ADM has spent $158 million on projects in support of these goals since inception, of which $71 million was spent in 2023, including three projects in Ag Services and Oilseeds designed to fully transition away from coal usage.

In 2024, the Company expects capital expenditures of $1.3 billion and additional cash outlays of approximately $1.0 billion in dividends and up to $2.3 billion in share repurchases, subject to other strategic uses of capital and the evolution of operating cash flows and the working capital position throughout the year.

The Company has $5.5 billion invested in or advanced to joint ventures and investments over which the Company has limited control as to governance and management activities.

ADM is committed to eliminating deforestation from all of the Company's supply chains by 2025. In 2023, after a strategic investigation of the impact of conversion of native habitats in its key supply chains, the Company announced its commitment to eliminate conversion of native habitats in high risk areas in South America for direct suppliers of all commodities by 2025 and indirect suppliers by 2027.

ADM focuses its efforts toward goals that align with its business objectives and allow the Company to make the greatest contribution towards the achievement of the SDGs, specifically Zero Hunger, Clean Water and Sanitation, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Climate Action, and Life On Land.

ADM's sustainability efforts are also supported by functional expertise throughout the Company such as in Operations and Utilities, Supply Chain and Procurement, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Environmental Health and Safety (EHS).

Both developed and emerging market areas are subject to impacts of economic downturns, including decreased demand for the Company's products, and reduced availability of credit, or declining credit quality of the Company's suppliers, customers, and other counterparties.

A number of jurisdictions where the Company has operations have implemented or are in the process of implementing carbon pricing programs or regulations to reduce GHG emissions impacting climate change and rising sea levels including, but not limited to, the United States, Canada, Mexico, the European Union and its member states, and China.

The EU deforestation-free regulation was approved late 2022 and is effective December 2024. The regulation affects seven specific commodities and their derivatives, as well as products made using these commodities. Soybean is the primary commodity that could be impacted due to the volume of export into and used in production in the EU.