You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Mark will review our fourth-quarter and full year performance and provide our outlook for 2021 in the first quarter.
Andrew will provide an overview of select financial items.
Information presented represents our best judgment based on today's understanding.
Actual results may vary based upon these risks and uncertainties.
Today's discussion and the supporting materials will include references to adjusted earnings per share adjusted EBITDA, adjusted cash from operations, free cash flow and organic revenue growth, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures.
Please note that as used in today's discussion, earnings means adjusted earnings, and EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA.
A reconciliation and definition of these terms as well as other non-GAAP financial terms to which we may refer during today's conference call are provided on our website.
Let me start by saying the fourth-quarter was an unusually difficult one for our company and we are disappointed in our earnings results.
We exceeded the midpoint of our guidance on earnings per share and EBITDA for a long stretch of quarters principally because of the strength of our portfolio and our geographic balance, combined with strong execution in the face of extreme weather events and significant industry specific supply chain disruptions.
This quarter was an anomaly and we will be as transparent as always to explain what happened.
We experienced significant logistics and supply chain constraints in the US; reduced demand in the US on some lower value herbicides, lower demand in Brazil and Argentina following the drought related delay to the start of the season, and products that were held up in Argentina customs.
On the positive side, we saw strong growth in EMEA, and once again, broad growth in Asia.
We had a very strong quarter from a cash flow perspective, which led to full year free cash flow of $544 million, an 80% increase over 2019.
We also posted very solid 2020 overall results.
Despite numerous challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic and $280 million in revenue headwinds from foreign currencies.
Our organic revenue growth of 7% and our 2% EBITDA growth shows how aggressively we manage costs and implemented price increases to offset as much of that FX headwind as possible.
The guidance for Q reflects our view of the environment in Brazil, as well as continued logistics and supply chain disruptions occurring around the world.
We believe these COVID impacts are perhaps severe as at any point over the last year.
In addition, our very strong Q1 2020 makes this quarter year-over-year comparison a particularly difficult one.
All of FMC's manufacturing facilities and distribution warehouses remain operational and fully staffed despite the ongoing pandemic.
However, one of our US toll manufacturers was disrupted in Q4 because of COVID related staffing issues, illustrating just one of the ongoing business risks during the pandemic.
We successfully completed the implementation of our new SAP system in November.
We now have a single modern system across the entire company for the first time in our history, which is enabling significant efficiencies in our back office processes.
And finally, we gave a thorough technology update to investors on November 17, highlighting the increasingly positive impact new synthetic and biological active ingredients will have on our business over the next decade and the ways in which we are driving to be the leader in crop protection innovation.
We plan to launch seven new active ingredients and four new biologicals this decade, which we expect will contribute a combined $1.8 to $2.1 billion in Incremental sales by 2013.
We recently announced a new collaboration with Novozymes, a world leader in enzyme discovery and production to research, co-develop and commercialize biological enzyme based crop solutions for growers around the world.
This adds to research collaborations and partnerships signed in 2020 with Zymergen and Cyclica and continues our trend of investing in new and innovative technologies that will enhance our long-term competitiveness.
Turning to our Q4 results on Slide 3.
We reported $1.15 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, which reflects a 4% decrease on a reported basis and 2% organic growth.
Despite those headwinds we posted double-digit sales growth in Asia, led by India, China, Japan and Australia, and in EMEA, with double-digit growth across a broad set of countries.
Adjusted EBITDA was $290 million, a decrease of 9% compared to the prior year period.
EBITDA margins were 25.2%, a decrease of 150 basis points compared to the prior year.
Adjusted earnings were $1.42 per diluted share in the quarter, a decrease of 19% versus Q4 2019.
This year-over-year decline was primarily driven by the decrease in EBITDA, an increase in tax rate compared to the very low tax rate in Q4 2019, and slightly higher D&A, partially offset by lower interest expense and lower non-controlling interests.
Moving now to Slide 4.
Q4 revenue decreased by 4% versus prior year, driven by a 5% FX headwind and a 3% volume decrease.
Price increases contributed a positive 4% impact, and offset 80% of the FX headwind, the highest in the past few quarters to deliver a positive 2% organic growth.
Volume growth in EMEA and Asia was more than offset by weakness in North America and Latin America.
Sales in EMEA increased 45% year-over-year and 42% organically.
We saw a particularly strong demand for our insect control applications for specialty crops as well as herbicides for cereals, especially in France, Spain, Russia and Germany.
We also had significant growth in the UK as customers secured orders in advance of Brexit.
In Asia, revenue increased 11% year-over-year, driven by broad volume growth in India, China, Japan and Australia.
India saw strong demand in rice and pulses in the south, and in sugarcane in the north, in addition to the growth from our recent market access expansion activities.
Last earnings call, we highlighted India as a key pillar of growth in Asia.
And the strength we saw in Q4, exemplifies this potential, with India growing over 20% organically in the quarter.
China so robust demand for diamide insecticides and fungicides on fruit and vegetables.
Growth in Australia was driven by demand in herbicides for cereals and oilseeds, while Japan's strength came from a variety of insecticides.
Moving now to Latin America.
Sales decreased 9% year-over-year, but grew 4% excluding significant FX headwinds.
Pricing actions across the region offset about 50% of the currency headwind at the earnings level in Q4, substantially more than in the prior 2 quarters.
The Brazil season was delayed by at least 30 days due to hot dry weather and this delay meant many numerous crops missed applications that will not return.
The drought persisted throughout Q4 resulting in lower than expected decline [Phonetic] across many crops, and it also impacted Argentina and other countries in the region.
For Latin America, overall we estimated the drought reduced sales by about $30 million.
In Argentina, we also had about $10 million of product held in bonded warehouses that was not released by customs officials in a timely manner.
Although these factors reduced Q4 growth in Argentina, 2020 was still our best year ever for the country.
In North America, sales decreased 34% year-over-year, roughly $40 million of this decline was due to supply chain disruptions, including COVID related factors associated with logistics and a toll manufacturing partner, impacting our ability to meet demand late in December.
An additional $30 million of the decrease was due to reduced volume and some lower value pre-emergent herbicides.
Our new herbicides such as Authority Edge, Authority Supreme and Anthem Maxx continue to add value and grow wealth.
We should also note, our biologicals business had a very strong Q4, with sales up in all regions by at least a high-teens percentage, including very strong sales of Quartzo in Brazil and successful launches of Accudo in EMEA and asset plan [Phonetic] and [Indecipherable] in South Korea.
Turning now to the fourth-quarter EBITDA bridge on Slide 5.
We had a $50 million contribution from higher pricing, which was nearly double what we realized in Q3.
We also aggressively managed costs to offset nearly all the $30 million year-over-year headwind we had anticipated.
However, the FX headwinds were more severe than expected and the late volume mixes in North America and Latin America were too large to overcome.
Moving to Slide 6 for a review of our full year results.
We reported $4.64 billion in revenue, which reflects a 1% increase on a reported basis and a 7% organic growth rate.
Adjusted EBITDA was $1.25 billion, an increase of 2% compared to 2019 even with nearly $270 million in headwinds from FX.
EBITDA margins were 26.9%, an increase of 40 basis points compared to the prior year.
2020 Adjusted Earnings was $6.19 per diluted share, an increase of 2% versus 2019.
This increase was driven by the increase in EBITDA as well as lower interest expense and lower share count, offset partially by a higher tax rate compared to the very low tax rate in the prior year and higher D&A.
Turning to Slide 7 for some of the drivers behind the full-year revenue growth.
Overall volume contributed 4% to revenue growth while price increased sales by 3%.
About $50 million of the 2020 revenue growth came from product launches within the year.
In Asia, sales increased 6% year-over-year and 9% organically, market expansion and share gains in India, coupled with a very strong market rebound in Australia were the primary drivers.
Our diamides were in high demand throughout the region in 2020 as we continue to grow in specialty crops such as rice and fruits and vegetables.
Sales in EMEA grew 4% versus in 2019% and 6% organically.
Demand was driven by diamides on specialty crops Battle Delta herbicide on cereals and Spotlight Plus herbicide on potatoes.
Latin America posted a 1% year-over-year revenue growth but high single-digit volume growth and solid price increases led to 17% organic growth.
Brazil had robust demand for our products for soybeans and sugarcane while there was reduced demand acreage for cotton.
North America sales decreased 8% as we had channeled destocking in the first half and then a tough Q4 as described earlier.
Of note, the Lucento fungicide launch had a strong second year and Elevest insect control had a good launch year.
Moving to Slide 8 where you can see our full-year EBITDA bridge.
Volume contributed 9% of the growth, while the combination of stringent cost controls and price increases offset 70% of the impact of foreign currencies.
Turning now to Slide 9 and I look at the overall market conditions for 2021.
We expect the global crop protection market will be up low-single digits on a US dollars basis.
Commodity prices for many of the major crops are higher and stock to use ratios have improved compared to this time last year.
All regions are seeing some benefit from better crop commodity prices, while the impacts from COVID on crop demand appear to be lessening.
Growth in Asia is expected to be in the low to mid single digits, driven by India, Australia and ASEAN.
Favorable weather should contribute in many countries.
The weather related recovery in Australia is expected to continue the other three regions are each projected to grow in the low single digits.
Growth in the Latin American market will be strengthened by price recovery from FX headwinds from 2020 in Brazil, continued strength in the soybean market, an increase of fruit and vegetable exports from Mexico and more normal weather patterns that are forecasted across the region.
In the EMEA market, we are seeing a solid market for cereals and specialty crops, which should be helped by improved weather in several parts of the region.
The market in North America is projected to have a firm foundation from crop commodity prices, but we are seeing a trend of distributors and retailers looking to strategically reduce their own inventory levels.
The specialty crop market is stable, but the most significant change in demand will depend on the pace of the economic recovery.
Taking all the above into consideration, we view 2021 as a more positive Ag macro environment than we did this time last year.
Having said that, we are all too well aware of the potential disruptions that COVID and the whether can cause in any one quarter.
Turning to Slide 10 and the review of FMC's full-year 2021 and Q1 earnings outlook.
FMC full-year 2020 earnings are now expected to be in the range of $6.65 to $7.35 per diluted share, a year-over-year increase of 13% at the midpoint.
Consistent with past practice, we do not factor in any benefit from planned share repurchases in our earnings per share estimates.
2021 revenue is forecasted to be in the range of $4.9 to $5.1 billion, an increase of 8% at the midpoint versus 2020%, and 9% organic growth.
We believe the strength of our portfolio will allow us to deliver this organic growth, continuing a multi-year trend of above market performance.
EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $1.32 billion to $1.42 billion, which represents a 10% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.
Guidance for Q1 implies year-over-year sales contraction of 7% at the midpoint on a reported basis and 5% organically.
We are forecasting an EBITDA decline of 15% at the midpoint versus Q1 2020, and earnings per share is forecasted to be down 18% year-over-year.
Turning to Slide 11 and full-year EBITDA and revenue drivers.
Revenue is expected to benefit from 7% volume growth with the largest growth in Asia and a 2% contribution from higher prices.
FX is forecasted to be a 1% top line headwind.
We are expecting broad growth across all regions, Asia has the best overall fundamentals.
But we're also seeing the benefit of better weather in Europe, strong soybean outlook for both Latin America and North America, and a cotton recovery in Brazil next fall.
Because of these factors, we are expecting a very strong second half of 2020, 2021 relative to the first half.
New products such as Overwatch herbicide in Australia based on our Isoflex active and Xyway fungicide in the US are expected to make meaningful contributions.
And we are also launching Fluindapyr fungicide in the US for non-crop applications.
We are focusing a strong year for each of our product areas.
In addition to continuing strength of Rynaxypyr and Cyazypyr insect controls, insecticides growth is also expected to come from products such as Talisman, Hero and Avatar.
Herbicides should see growth in several of our top brands including Authority, Gamit, Reata [Phonetic] and Spotlight Plus, in addition to the Overwatch launch.
And growth in fungicides is forecasted to be driven primarily by the Xyway launch in the US.
Our EBITDA guidance reflects strong volume and pricing benefits, offset partially by increases in R&D spending as well as the reversal of some of the temporary cost savings from 2020.
We are forecasting a $40 million increase in R&D to bring us to a level of funding that keeps all projects on a critical path to commercialization.
Additionally, we're making growth investments in our farm intelligence and the precision Ag initiatives, new product launches like Overwatch, as well as FMC Ventures.
We are also expecting some supply chain cost increases including logistics and pockets of raw materials.
These headwinds will be partially offset other realization of the final $15 million of SAP synergies which will give us a cumulative SAP synergies of approximately $65 million.
Moving to Slide 12 where you see the Q1 drivers.
On the revenue line, volume is expected to drive a 6% decline, while a 1% contribution from higher prices largely offset the FX headwind.
We expect the benefit of approximately $25 million in sales from Q4, supply and logistics delays to be captured in Q1.
This is about half of the Q4 impact.
In the US, this miss timing limits what we can recoup.
And in Argentina, ongoing customers delays and release in products could cause us to miss application windows.
There are several headwinds in Q1 revenue that more than offset the flow through from Q4.
First, we are facing a particularly difficult comparison in Latin America where sales increased 26% year-over-year and 38% organically in Q1 2020.
Brazil's cotton business is very strong for as a year ago, this will not be repeated this season as cotton acreage is down 15%.
In EMEA, we are facing continued headwinds from discontinued registrations, and the $15 million in Q4 sales related to Brexit that would normally have been sold in the first quarter.
Regarding EBITDA drivers reduced volume is the biggest factor.
While pricing is forecast to offset the FX headwind, costs are expected to be higher by $12 million, driven primarily by the increased R&D investments, we mentioned earlier.
FX was a 5% headwind to revenue in the quarter, as expected, with the impact of higher than anticipated local currency denominated sales in Brazil, offset in part by a modest tailwind in the Eurozone.
For full year 2020 FX was a 6% headwind to revenue.
The Brazilian Real represented by vast majority of the FX headwinds in 2020 followed by the Indian rupee, Pakistan rupee and a broad number of non-euro currencies in EMEA.
Pricing actions offset slightly half of the currency headwinds in the year.
Looking ahead to 2021, we expect a more stable FX environment with only a slight headwind to revenue [Phonetic].
We will continue to take pricing actions in Brazil to recover the FX impact from 2020.
But overall pricing will be somewhat dampened by price volume choices being made in our Asia business to drive higher growth.
Interest expense for the fourth-quarter was $34.2 million dollars, down $8.7 million from the prior year period, benefiting from lower debt balances and lower LIBOR rates.
Interest expense for full year 2020 was down $7.3 million from the prior year with the benefit of lower interest rates, partially offset by changes in debt outstanding.
Our effective tax rate on adjusted earnings for 2020 was 13.7%, well within our expectations and up from the very low 2019 rate due to shifts in the geographic mix of taxable earnings and inter-related impacts on the US minimum tax and [Indecipherable].
The tax rate in the fourth-quarter was 14.4% to true up with the full year actual rate.
Tax was a headwind to earnings in the quarter due to the very low tax rate in the prior year period.
We expect our effective tax rate to be in the range of 12.5% to 14.5% in 2021 similar to 2020.
Moving next to the balance sheet and liquidity.
Gross debt at year-end was $3.3 billion, essentially flat with the prior quarter with nearly $600 million of cash on hand.
We chose to hold cash on the balance sheet in advance of the seasonal working capital build we see in the first quarter to avoid having to take on as much commercial paper in the beginning of the new year.
As such, gross debt to trailing 12 month EBITDA was 2.6 times at the end of the year, while net debt to EBITDA was 2.3 times.
We are in the right leverage range given the excess cash at year-end.
We do not expect to carry this level of cash on a steady state basis going forward, so you should expect cash balances to decline through the coming year.
Moving to Slide 13 and a look at 2020 cash flow and the outlook for 2021.
Free cash flow for 2020 was $544 million with free cash flow conversion from adjusted earnings at 67%.
Both metrics up 80% percent from the prior year period.
Adjusted cash from operations increased by about $170 million in 2020 with growth in working capital, more than offset by lower non-working capital factors and increased EBITDA.
Capital additions were down $60 million due to project delays and deferrals related to COVID-19 pandemic.
Legacy and transformation spending was down $14 million with relatively stable legacy spending and transformation spending lower as we completed our SAP implementation.
We anticipate full year 2021 free cash flow to be in the range of $530 to $620 million, an increase of 6% at the midpoint, with free cash flow conversion 63% at the midpoint.
Growth in adjusted cash from operations and reduced legacy and transformation spending are expected to be partially offset by a significant year-over-year increase in capital additions.
This increase in capital additions comes as we catch up on projects that were delayed or deferred in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Turning to Slide 14, we are pleased with our strong free cash flow growth and improvement in free cash conversion.
There are a number of moving parts in our 2020 cash flow results and 2020 outlook that merits some further discussion and will help better explain this trajectory.
2020 free cash flow benefited from a planned real estate asset sale that will not repeat as well as the un-forecasted delay of a lump sum environmental liability payment we had expected to be paid in December.
Excluding these impacts, 2020 free cash flow would have been about $500 million, in cash conversion about 62%.
Similarly, 2021 free cash flow was negatively impacted by the timing shift of the environmental liability payment.
Adjusting for this timing shift, 2021 free cash flow would be about $600 million, in cash conversion 65%.
So, on a more comparable basis, free cash conversion steps up from 38% in 2019 to 62% in 2020, and 65% in 2021, getting closer to our 70 to 80% target range for 2023.
I know that this view [Phonetic] of cash flow, we've not made any adjustments for the abnormally low capital additions in 2020 or the catch up to a more normal level in 2021.
But this shift, is in large part, the reason why cash conversion steps up more slowly in 2021, as the increase in capital additions largely offsets the step down and transformation cash spending from the completion of the SAP program.
You should expect the capital additions to continue in a similar range to 2021 for the next several years to support our organic growth, including new capacity that support new active ingredient introductions.
Equally as important as growing our free cash flow is the discipline with which we deploy it.
As you can see on Slide 15, we continue our balanced approach to cash deployment.
We are fully funding our organic growth in making modest inorganic investments to enhance our growth.
We are then returning the excess cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, while keeping debt at our targeted leverage levels.
In 2020, we deployed nearly $350 million of cash flow, while maintaining excess liquidity throughout the pandemic.
We deployed $65 million to acquire the remaining rights to the fungicide [Indecipherable].
We paid nearly $230 million in dividends and we repurchased $50 million in FMC shares in the fourth-quarter.
In 2021, we expect to accelerate cash deployment.
We are planning to repurchase between $400 and $500 million worth of FMC shares in the year with purchases in every quarter of the year, though more heavily weighted to the second half.
We expect to pay dividends approaching $250 million and we will continue to look for attractive opportunities to make additional modest inorganic investments to complement our organic growth and expand our technological capabilities.
I'd like to close with a final update on our SAP S/4HANA ERP system implementation.
We had a successful last go-live in November and are now operating on a single thoroughly modern system across the entire company for the first time in our history.
The go-live went better than expected and we have smoothly transitioned to operating the company in closing the books in the new system.
Our new SAP system has enabled significant efficiencies in our back office processes.
We captured over $50 million in synergies in 2020 having moved aggressively to accelerate $30 million in planned savings from 2021 to 2020.
We now expect to deliver $15 million in SAP enabled synergies in 2021, the benefit of which is reflected in our full year guidance for a total of $65 million in synergies from implementing the new system.
There will certainly be additional efficiency gains in 2022 and beyond as we further leverage this generational investments in our business process infrastructure, but we will drive them as part of our business as usual efforts to gain leverage on back office costs as we continue to grow the company.
We had a number of issues in late Q4 that we're having to address.
We do not expect all of them to results in Q1.
We do however see these issues as transitory and are focused on ensuring we can mitigate supply chain risks and continue to expand our market growth opportunities.
As you can see from our robust 2021 guidance, we are confident that 2021 will be another year of strong revenue and earnings growth for FMC.
We continue to renew our portfolio launching two new important products in Q1, we continue to invest in our R&D pipeline, and we remain fully committed to bringing new sustainable technologies to our customers.
Our overall agenda on sustainability continues to advance, with the recent appointment of our first Chief Sustainability Officer and through new partnerships like the one we recently announced with Novozymes.
We plan to return about $700 million to shareholders this year through dividends and buybacks.
And finally, with our 2021 growth rates above the long-range plan, we remain firmly on track to deliver our five-year plan commitments.
I very much appreciate his leadership and look forward to his continued involvement as non-Executive Chairman.

user
sees q1 revenue down 7 percent.
sees fy revenue $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion.
qtrly revenue of $1.15 billion, down 4 percent versus q4 2019, up 2 percent organically.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.42.2021 adjusted earnings are expected to be in range of $6.65 to $7.35 per diluted share.
full-year 2021 free cash flow is expected to be in range of $530 to $620 million.
expects to repurchase $400 to $500 million of fmc shares in 2021, beginning in q1.

assistant