Archer Daniels Midland
Archer Daniels Midland's revenue fell 6.2% to $80.3 billion in fiscal 2025. Its net margin was 1.3%, down from 2.1% a year earlier. Free cash flow was $4.2 billion, up 242.6%. It paid out $987 million in dividends and buybacks, 23% of free cash flow. The diluted share count fell 1.8%.
Net margin is net income as a share of revenue. Free cash flow is cash from operations minus capital spending. Return on capital is after-tax operating income as a share of the money invested in the business: debt plus equity, minus cash. Market cap is the last closing share price times the latest diluted share count, so it is approximate. P/E is the last close divided by diluted earnings per share over the last four quarters, or the latest fiscal year where the quarters aren't available; there is none when the company made a loss.
What Archer Daniels Midland does
ADM buys crops from farmers around the world and turns them into food ingredients, animal feed, fuels and industrial products. It buys, stores, ships and processes grains and oilseeds such as soybeans and corn, and makes items like vegetable oils, protein meals for livestock feed, sweeteners, starches, ethanol, flavors, colors and pet food ingredients. Its customers include food, beverage, feed, energy and industrial companies.
It reports three segments. Ag Services and Oilseeds handles crop trading, transport and storage and crushes oilseeds into oils and meals. Carbohydrate Solutions mills corn and wheat into sweeteners, starches, flour and ethanol. Nutrition makes ingredients and systems for people and animals. Soybeans made up 17% of 2025 revenue, corn 13% and soybean meal 11%. ADM also holds a 22.5% stake in Wilmar International, a Singapore-listed agribusiness group. It says it competes mainly on price, exchange rates, quality and global supply.
ADM spent $246 million on research and development in 2025. It owns trucks, rail cars, barges and ships to move its products, and buys raw materials from thousands of growers and merchants, mostly on short-term or spot terms.
Its biggest risks, as it describes them
- Price swings and supply shocks in the farm commodities it buys, stores, processes and sells.
- Weather, transport and energy costs that can disrupt how it sources and moves crops.
- Limited control over its joint ventures and equity investments, which it may have to write down.
- Strong competition in commodity markets, where it competes mainly on price and quality.
- Rules specific to farming and agricultural products, and changing sustainability rules, that could raise costs.
Charts show fiscal years, from the 10-K filings.
Revenue and margins
Net income and earnings per share
From fiscal 2016 to 2025, earnings per share grew 0.4% a year and net income fell 1.9% a year, as buybacks cut the share count by 18%.
Returns on capital
Cash flow
Payouts and share count
Valuation
Two ways to value Archer Daniels Midland yourself, both starting from its filings: a discounted cash flow model and the price-to-earnings method.
Discounted cash flow (DCF)
A discounted cash flow (DCF) model values a business as the cash it may generate in future, discounted back to today. The starting figures come from Archer Daniels Midland's 10-K (or, for net cash and shares, its latest 10-Q) and the assumptions are yours: start from one of three example scenarios, then change any figure to see what it implies for a share, and how that compares with the last share price.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Archer Daniels Midland's fiscal 2025 free cash flow of $4.2B, net cash of −$7.4B at December 31, 2025 and 484 million diluted shares, from its filings. The scenarios are fitted to Archer Daniels Midland: the base scenario's growth in years 1 to 5 is its revenue growth over the last 3 years, -7.5% a year, kept between 0% and 20%; the cautious and optimistic ones are lower and higher, and growth in years 6 to 10 is halfway to the long-run rate. The base scenario's discount rate is 8%: 7% for a stable business (Agricultural Products & Services), plus 1 point for unsteady results (revenue fell in two of the last five years); the cautious and optimistic ones use a point more and a point less. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $79.01
- Value on these assumptions, against the last close
- —
- Cash flows in years 1 to 10, valued today
- —
- Everything after year 10, valued today
- —
- Plus net cash
- —
- Share of value from after year 10
How the value changes with two assumptions
Price-to-earnings (P/E) method
Another common way to value a company is to multiply its earnings per share by a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple: the number of years of today's earnings an investor pays for a share. A higher multiple usually means investors expect earnings to grow. Choose a multiple, for example from similar companies, to see the value it gives.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Archer Daniels Midland's earnings per share of $3.65 (over the last four quarters). Each grows earnings for a year at the cash flow scenarios' rates and applies a multiple to next year's earnings: 21.6×, the middle of Archer Daniels Midland's own P/E today, its peers' median and its sector's median (Archer Daniels Midland's own P/E today) for the base scenario, 20% less and more for the cautious and optimistic ones. The price is brought back a year at 9%, 8% and 7%. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $79.01
- Value at this multiple, against the last close
- —
- Archer Daniels Midland's P/E at the last close
- 21.6×
| Company | Last close | Earnings per share | P/E today |
|---|---|---|---|
| DoleDOLE | $13.30 | $0.53 | 25.1× |
| Bunge GlobalBG | $102.22 | $4.29 | 23.8× |
| Archer Daniels MidlandADM | $79.01 | $3.65 | 21.6× |
| Darling IngredientsDAR | $57.16 | $3.71 | 15.4× |
| IngredionINGR | $95.43 | $9.17 | 10.4× |
Balance sheet
| Fiscal year end | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and short-term investments | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 0.6 | 1.0 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 9.5 | 9.2 | 8.4 | 10.2 | 8.4 |
| Net debt (negative means net cash) | 8.6 | 8.1 | 7.0 | 9.5 | 7.4 |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 1.9x | 1.2x | 1.2x | 2.3x | 2.4x |
| Debt to equity | 0.4x | 0.4x | 0.3x | 0.5x | 0.4x |
| Interest coverage | 13.5x | 14.2x | 7.6x | 4.2x | 3.0x |
| Current ratio | 1.4x | 1.5x | 1.6x | 1.4x | 1.4x |
| Quick ratio | 0.8x | 0.8x | 0.9x | 0.8x | 0.8x |
Insider trades
Over the 12 months between October 27, 2025 and October 26, 2026, 1 insider bought $486,750 of Archer Daniels Midland shares on the open market, and 4 insiders sold $10.1 million.
| Date | Insider | Trade | Shares | Price | Value | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 13, 2026 | Christopher M CuddySenior Vice President | Sold | 35,000 | $73.50 | $2.6 million | Form 4 |
| Mar 13, 2026 | Ian R PinnerSenior Vice President | Sold | 34,106 | $71.53 | $2.4 million | Form 4 |
| Mar 10, 2026 | Gregory A MorrisSenior Vice President | Sold | 50,000 | $68.48 | $3.4 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 17, 2026 | Jennifer L WeberSenior Vice President | Sold | 25,000 | $67.04 | $1.7 million | Form 4 |
| Feb 5, 2026 | David R McAtee IIDirector | Bought | 7,500 | $64.90 | $486,750 | Form 4 |
Piotroski F-score
The F-score counts how many of nine simple tests of profitability, funding and efficiency a company passed in a year (Piotroski, 2000). The more tests passed, the stronger the year: 8 or 9 is strong, 0 to 2 weak. Companies that report no gross profit are scored on the other eight.
| Test | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net income is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Cash from operations is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Return on assets rose | Fail | Fail | Fail |
| Cash from operations exceeds net income | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Debt fell relative to assets | Pass | Fail | Pass |
| Current ratio rose | Pass | Fail | Fail |
| Share count didn't rise | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Gross margin rose | Pass | Fail | Fail |
| Revenue rose relative to assets | Fail | Fail | Fail |
| F-score | 7 of 9 | 4 of 9 | 5 of 9 |
| Accruals ratio | −1.7% | −1.8% | −8.3% |
Compare
Put Archer Daniels Midland side by side with any other company we cover: revenue, growth, margins, cash flow and returns, with ten years of charts.
Similar companies
| Company | Year | Revenue growth | Operating margin | Free cash flow margin | Return on capital | Net debt to EBITDA | F-score | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archer Daniels Midland | FY25 | −6.2% | — | 5.2% | 5.2% | 2.4x | 5 | |
| Bunge Global | FY25 | 32.4% | — | −1.2% | 6.1% | 5.0x | 4 | Compare |
| Dole | FY25 | 8.2% | 2.4% | 0.0% | 6.3% | 1.8x | 6 | Compare |
| Ingredion | FY25 | −2.8% | 14.1% | 7.1% | 16.0% | 0.6x | 8 | Compare |
| Darling Ingredients | FY25 | 7.4% | 4.5% | 11.1% | 3.2% | 5.0x | 7 | Compare |
10 years of figures
| Fiscal year | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| Revenue | 62.3 | 60.8 | 64.3 | 64.7 | 64.4 | 85.2 | 101.6 | 93.9 | 85.5 | 80.3 |
| Revenue growth | −7.9% | −2.4% | 5.8% | 0.5% | −0.5% | 32.5% | 19.1% | −7.5% | −8.9% | −6.2% |
| Gross profit | 3.6 | 3.5 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.5 | 6.0 | 7.6 | 7.5 | 5.8 | 5.0 |
| Research and development | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| Operating income | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net income | 1.3 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 2.7 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 1.8 | 1.1 |
| Diluted EPS (US$) | 2.16 | 2.79 | 3.19 | 2.44 | 3.15 | 4.79 | 7.71 | 6.43 | 3.65 | 2.23 |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 591 | 572 | 567 | 565 | 565 | 566 | 563 | 542 | 493 | 484 |
| Cash flow | ||||||||||
| Cash from operations | −6.5 | −6.0 | −4.8 | −5.5 | −2.4 | 6.6 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 2.8 | 5.5 |
| Capital expenditure | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.2 |
| Free cash flow | −7.4 | −7.0 | −5.6 | −6.3 | −3.2 | 5.4 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 1.2 | 4.2 |
| Dividends paid | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Share buybacks | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 1.4 | 2.7 | 2.3 | 0.0 |
| Acquisitions | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 1.9 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 0.1 |
| Stock-based compensation | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Balance sheet at fiscal year end | ||||||||||
| Cash and short-term investments | 0.6 | 0.8 | 2.0 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 0.6 | 1.0 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 6.9 | 7.5 | 8.4 | 8.9 | 9.9 | 9.5 | 9.2 | 8.4 | 10.2 | 8.4 |
| Total assets | 39.8 | 40.0 | 40.8 | 44.0 | 49.7 | 56.1 | 59.8 | 54.6 | 53.3 | 52.4 |
| Total liabilities | 22.6 | 21.6 | 21.8 | 24.8 | 29.7 | 33.6 | 35.5 | 30.5 | 31.1 | 29.6 |
| Shareholders' equity | 17.2 | 18.3 | 19.0 | 19.2 | 20.0 | 22.5 | 24.3 | 24.1 | 22.2 | 22.7 |
| Margins and ratios | ||||||||||
| Gross margin | 5.8% | 5.8% | 6.5% | 6.4% | 6.9% | 7.0% | 7.5% | 8.0% | 6.8% | 6.3% |
| Operating margin | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net margin | 2.0% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 2.1% | 2.8% | 3.2% | 4.3% | 3.7% | 2.1% | 1.3% |
| Free cash flow margin | −11.8% | −11.5% | −8.7% | −9.7% | −5.0% | 6.4% | 2.1% | 3.2% | 1.4% | 5.2% |
| Return on capital | 6.5% | 8.0% | 8.5% | 6.6% | 7.4% | 9.8% | 14.8% | 12.5% | 7.4% | 5.2% |
| Return on equity | 7.3% | 9.0% | 9.7% | 7.2% | 9.0% | 12.7% | 18.5% | 14.4% | 7.8% | 4.8% |
| Return on assets | 3.2% | 4.0% | 4.5% | 3.2% | 3.8% | 5.1% | 7.5% | 6.1% | 3.3% | 2.0% |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 2.1x | 2.3x | 1.9x | 2.7x | 2.9x | 1.9x | 1.2x | 1.2x | 2.3x | 2.4x |