Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp. (BIOX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Bioceres Crop Solutions Corp. (BIOX -1.77%)
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Feb 10, 2022, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bioceres Corp Solutions fiscal second quarter 2022 financial results conference call. My name is Victoria, and I will be coordinating your call today. [Operator instructions] I'll now present you to your host, Rodrigo Krause, head of investor relations to begin. Please go ahead.

Rodrigo Krause -- Head of Investor Relations

Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Presenting during today's call will be Federico Trucco, our chief executive officer; and Enrique Lopez Lecube, our chief financial officer. Both will be available for the Q&A session. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Safe Harbor statement.

Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of today's earnings release and presentation as well as in our recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. Also, please note that for comparison purposes and a better understanding of our company's underlying performance, and in addition to discussing as reported results during our presentation today, we will discuss comparable results, which exclude the impact of hyperinflation accounting in Argentina. Additional information in connection with the application of the Rule IAS 29 can be found in our earnings report.

Finally, this conference call is being webcasted. The webcast link is available at the biocerescrops.com Investor Relations site. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to our CEO, Federico Trucco. Thank you.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Rodrigo. Good morning, and welcome to all that have joined us today for our quarterly report. Please turn to Slide 3 for a brief overview of the business and financial highlights we will be discussing in today's call. We are pleased to report a record quarter in the history of our company with quarterly comparable revenues at $90.3 million and LTM adjusted EBITDA at $61.8 million, excluding HB4 prelaunch costs.

Our very strong second quarter's performance reflects an 89% growth in revenues over the same quarter of last year with the last growth across all three business segments. We're also very proud to report that our combined growth in Europe and North America at 146% year over year, places these important geographies at least to 10% of our global revenues, a huge step forward in our international diversification strategy. As we have done in past calls, we will provide a brief update on the HB4 rollout and regulatory processes. On this last front, I would like to mention the recent announcement in November 2021 by the Brazilian National Biosafety Commission, CTNBio that decided unanimously to approve the import certification for HB4 wheat flour for human and animal consumption in that country.

This approval is a major milestone in Bioceres' mission to build agricultural systems that enhance carbon sequestration and climate resiliency and is a necessary step for a commercial launch in the upcoming planting season. Please now turn to Slide 4 for an overview on our seasons results for a before week as we completed harvesting of 53,000 hectares. HB4 wheat performance was consistent with prior seasons with HB4 varieties outyielding non-HB4 by 12.8% across all environments and mutations with improved performance in local activity environments where a yield benefit averaged 49%. Some important takeaways from the current season are the improved sanitary and quality profile observed in our HB4 materials.

For instance, the prevalence of yellow rust in HB4 varieties was 70x lower than in commercial controls in infected fields. As we expand acreage and achieve exposure to a wider array of growing conditions, we are also able to identify some limitations in our current first-generation portfolio, particularly in terms of lodging in undernourished environments and lower yield growth under conditions, most notoriously above the 5 tons per hectare level. We expect to overcome instrumentations with the introduction of second-generation genetics as we will discuss in Slide 6 and with grower activities. In Slide 5, you will see performance results by region and grower satisfaction levels.

It is very important to note that 225 growers anticipated in the current season, representing an unprecedented level of pre-lodged grower scrutiny for the technology and for our identity preserve production program. Yield improvements range from 5.7% to 39.6% across all environments and regions. Regions where benefits were lower, reflected limited adaptation by current materials and conversely, in regions with gains were more relevant. Grower satisfaction levels ranged between 60% and 80% in regions where yield benefits were below average, and increase to about 80% where benefits were close to or above average.

We believe that the current level of performance information by region, by productivity conditions, and by global profile, provide us a very valuable data to fine-tune our value proposition and portfolio mix ahead of our upcoming launch. Turning now to Slide 6. As noted, we expect to minimize geographical limitations and improve grower experience under high-yielding conditions as we expand our portfolio to include second-gen materials. Our current data show an average improvement of 16% in environments yielding above 5 tons per hectare for new materials when compared to first-generation varieties.

We are moving at full biological speed to include these newer materials in our offering, planning to contract 30% of the 23-24 system multiplication cycle with these second-generation varieties. Please turn to Slide 7 for our current thinking regarding the HB4 wheat opportunity in key markets. LATAM represents a total market of roughly 9.5 million hectares, of which Argentina, South America's biggest wheat producer, contributes with 6.5 million. We believe we can capture an estimated 2.3 million hectares with our available portfolio and near-term pipeline, and we are currently requesting participation of three commercial varieties.

We estimate an incremental EBITDA of between $15 million and $20 million by fiscal year '24, with peak sales in this market projected in the $190 million to $200 million range. We also expect to grow beyond Argentina as we secure cultivation approval in Brazil, the second-largest LATAM market. The rate of approval in -- now expected for 2023 after completing in-country evaluations. We believe that HB4 technology may enable significant market expansion in this country, particularly as tropical germplasm currently being tested for reproduction in the region is incorporated to the pipeline.

Brazil may, therefore, represent an additional opportunity of between 700,000 to 1.1 million hectares in the medium term. Beyond Latin America, we are currently pursuing production approvals in the United States, Australia, and South Africa. These geographies combined represent twice the hectare opportunity currently being pursued in Latin America, although in a longer time horizon. Please turn to Slide 8.

On this slide, we address the rollout of new HB4 soy varieties. As we anticipated in our fourth quarter call of fiscal year 2021, we decided to discontinue the ramp-up process for first-generation materials in favor of second and third-generation varieties. Third-generation varieties were multiplied of season in the United States and resulting inventories planted in full in the current cycle, totaling approximately 1,500 hectares, which are generally in good condition. In the case of second-generation materials, where the germplasm drug was not fully eliminated, we decided to reposition a significant part of the multiplication process as a follow-up crop to reach in later season plantings.

Data from the 2021 season indicated that the use of these materials as a second crop in later season plantings showed little, if any, performance gap under higher-yielding conditions. Unfortunately, the lack of rain during December made some of the locations we selected no longer suitable for the ramp-up process. And consequently, we achieved 60% of the planned area for second-generation plantings. Despite not fully achieving our multiplication objective in the current cycle, we still believe resulting inventories may reach multilevel revenues for the next season.

Finally turning to the next slide, in our progression to further enhance our business worldwide and develop top-performing genetics for HB4 traits and new technologies, we have brought on board Alexandre Garcia as global head of seeds. Alex has led TMG's innovation and R&D initiatives for many years and has collaborated actively and meaningfully from the TMG side on HB4 technology development in Brazil. We take this opportunity to welcome Alex to the Bioceres family and wish him every success in his new position. This concludes my prepared remarks.

I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Enrique Lopez Lecube, to discuss our fiscal second-quarter financial results. Enrique?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Federico. Good day to everyone. Thank you for joining us for our presentation. Let's turn to Slide 10 as we go to our financials for the last quarter.

In the second quarter, we continue to have strong revenue momentum with comparable revenues increasing by 89% year over year to $90.3 million. Part of this increase is explained by a weak comparable as last year's second-quarter numbers were negatively affected by drought in key regions of South America. However, year-to-date growth reached 72% and growth in the last 12 months showed a solid 56% increase, jumping to $262.6 million, which confirms robust growth dynamics that go far beyond comparables. The main drivers behind the quarter's numbers are a remarkable commercial performance and market penetration of scaling technologies.

Micro-beaded fertilizers, in particular, continued to deliver growth in Argentina, while inoculant and seed treatment pack sales were outstanding in North America and Europe. Let's please move to Slide 11 to take a closer look to our baseline business profitability performance on an LTM basis and year to date. As a reference, baseline business EBITDA excludes HB4 prelaunch costs, which are expensed as incurred and accounted for in SG&A and other income or loss, both income statement line items that impact our reported adjusted EBITDA metric. As we have made headway since scaling up the HB4 program to build seed inventories for commercial launch, expenses related to prelaunch efforts have ceased to be irrelevant relative to our reported EBITDA as they had been until last quarter, making it necessary to have a profitability metric that grasps performance of the underlying business that generates revenues today.

The three main components of the expenses that are stripped out from the baseline business EBITDA calculation are: HB4 related SG&A, inventory ramp-up and data acquisition costs and IAS 29 accounting adjustments to HB4 grain inventories. And we are providing a breakdown for each of these categories, both in the presentation and our press release. To the numbers, following the growth trend in revenues the last 12 months baseline business EBITDA reached $61.8 million in the second quarter, as Federico pointed out, up 46% year over year. On a sequential basis, LTM baseline business EBITDA grew 15%, in line with the upward trend we have seen for the past four quarters.

HB4 prelaunch costs during the last 12 months amounted to $6.2 million, of which close to half correspond to inventory ramp-up and data acquisition costs and $1.4 million were general expenses related to the management of the HB4 program. The remaining $1.9 million were not cash expenses, but the accrual of a negative accounting adjustment from IAS 29 application to HB4 grain inventories. During the first half of the fiscal year, our baseline business reached $37 million in adjusted EBITDA, a 48% increase compared to the year-ago period. HB4 prelaunch costs for the first half stood at $4.9 million.

Importantly, while the SG&A portion of the HB4 prelaunch costs has a roughly steady run rate throughout the year, inventory ramp-up and data acquisition costs can be lumpy as its accrual depends mainly on when farmers choose to set a price to grain they provide us with as well as our own ability to commercialize grain that will not be used for seed purposes. I will refer to the specifics behind the second quarter's performance in the next slides. But as a summary for this one, I believe that we had a great quarter that builds on top of the momentum we have seen in our baseline business for almost a full year now. It is exciting to think about the prospect of adding to this business, the $15 million to $20 million in EBITDA contribution from HB4 wheat that we believe we can accomplish by fiscal year-end 2024.

We have now tested our wheat varieties at a broad scale and received good feedback from growers regarding ROI, which makes us feel comfortable with the opex we are putting into the prelaunch of HB4. Now let's turn to Slide 12 for a breakdown by business segment. As mentioned before, comparable revenues increased to $90.3 million in the second quarter, up from $47.7 million a year ago. Almost half of this growth came from the crop nutrition segment, which grew by $19.3 million, more than its revenues.

It was an outstanding performance in the quarter, both for fertilizers and inoculants. Micro fertilizer sales grew aggressively in Argentina, which explained most of the 9,500 tons sold during the quarter. Demand generation was done in the last two years, paid out as commodity fertilizer prices continued on an upward trend, offering great market conditions to scale up our own product. Also, high inoculant sales were seen across several geographies, in particular, Europe, our soybean acreage increased, and Brazil, where our long-life inoculant formulation continues to represent a competitive advantage and drive expansion.

Importantly, the increase in crop nutrition revenues also came with the gross margin expansion given the positive market conditions and economies of scales in micro-beaded fertilizers and a product mix shift inoculants to higher-value products such as LLI. Gross margin was 54.1% for the segment, compared to 50.7% a year ago. In the seed and integrated products segment, revenue growth and margin expansion came to Europe, U.S., Uruguay, and Argentina. Same as inoculants, pack sales also benefited from Europe's rise in soybean acreage.

European growth was also leveraged by new commercial agreements while growth in the United States was mainly explained by changes introduced in the commercial team. Segment sales grew by $3.1 million to $15.3 million, a 26% year-on-year increase with a gross margin expanding to 68.9%. Finally, crop protection saw a 76% increase in revenues, contributing $20.1 million to total revenue growth. It was the only segment that brought growth with a decline in gross margin as expansion in sales was driven by lower margin third-party products, something to be expected following the split of commercial teams that focus on third-party products versus proprietary portfolio.

In Slide 13, we can see how this translated into gross profit contribution per segment. Comparable gross profit increased by 69% year over year, reaching $42.2 million. The crop nutrition segment contributed close to two-thirds of the total $17.2 million increase in gross profit with an impressive 233% growth driven by increased sales and margin expansion, as I described in the preceding slide. Crop protection and seed and integrated products segments contributed 23% and 15%, respectively, to the overall gross profit growth.

Despite all regions nominally growing contributions to gross profit compared to a year ago quarter, Europe and North America stood out, contributing jointly 23% of the gross profit growth and representing 15% of the total $42.2 million in gross profit, up 11% in the second quarter of the prior fiscal year. Let's move on to Slide 14 for a breakdown of the quarterly EBITDA. Our baseline business adjusted EBITDA reached $22.7 million, up 57% from the year-ago quarter, which is a weak comparable to a very strong performance, as explained before. We had an aggressive EBITDA growth as a result of top-line expansion, partially offset by the decrease in gross margin, increased operating expenses, and IAS 29 adjustments to gross profit.

Operating expenses, excluding prelaunch HB4 SG&A increased by $7.3 million, explained by a mix of higher variable and fixed costs. Variable expenses such as sales taxes and price increased in line with sales growth and explain roughly one-third of the total increase. Fixed expenses, on the other hand, were negatively affected by FX and inflation in Argentina, a dynamic that has continued to develop unfavorably to dollar-dominated business, such as ours, for the fourth consecutive quarter, affecting our cost structure in the country operations, not only in SG&A but also in cost of goods sold. JV results went up by $1.1 million compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2021, mainly due to higher Synertech sales, our micro-beaded fertilizer manufacturing JV.

HB4 prelaunch costs totaled $3 million in the quarter, leading to a reported adjusted EBITDA of $19.7 million. Now let's please turn to Slide 15 to address our debt evolution cash position before turning it over to Federico for final remarks. Total debt has been increasing in line with the growth of the business. Net debt by quarter end was $147.9 million, a 2.66 ratio of net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA.

On a sequential basis, our leverage ratio decreased from 2.74 in the first quarter due to LTM adjusted EBITDA growth. Over the last year, we have been working on a debt structure that supports the growing baseline business and that upcoming HB4 launch with two goals in mind: to decrease the current portion of total debt and to reduce cash financial expenses. On the first, we have decreased the short-term portion of our debt from 54% by the end of the year-ago quarter to almost 25% by December 2021. On the second goal, despite the growth in total debt, which reached $187.8 million, our cash financial interest expense line remained roughly flat at $13.4 million for the last 12 months as of December 2021.

During the quarter, our subsidiary, Rizobacter Argentina completed a $20 million public offering of corporate bonds maturing in December 2024 and paying an annual nominal interest rate 1.49%. This issuance allowed us to maintain a strong liquidity position of almost $40 million by quarter end and further improved our average cost of debt. By way of conclusion, I believe that the strong financial performance of our baseline business, combined with a stable and very healthy debt structure and liquidity position provides a solid foundation for growth. We are excited about what is to come next as we aim for the EBITDA contribution that we have identified for HB4 week by fiscal 2024.

But with our minds set in a much bigger global opportunity, which represents beyond that specific target.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Enrique. I think we can now open up the call for Q&A. And after that, I'll finish with some final remarks. Operator?

Questions & Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question comes from Ben Klieve from Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Ben Klieve -- Lake Street Capital Markets -- Analyst

All right. First of all, congratulations on a great quarter. First question is around the launch of HB4 wheat. I'm curious the degree to which there are buyer -- downstream buyers secured after harvest.

Do farmers that are buying your seed have guaranteed offtake agreements for millers and do those millers have offtake agreements with consumer goods companies or is that something that still is yet to be determined?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Ben, this is Federico. Thanks for joining us today, and thank you for your question. So we have been working actively to create the agreement with processors. As we move into the next season and commercially launch HB4 wheat, we will continue to handhold with our farmers so that we minimize any kind of commercial disruption.

And as of today, we have already 13 different processors onboarded or in the process of onboarding for processing HB4 wheat with capacity combined -- or a combined capacity, I should say, of about 700,000 tons, which is way in excess of what we would need for the upcoming season. So that's been negotiated, put in place. That is an aspect that we will continue to solve for our customers, understanding the complexity behind this new technology on the commercial front.

Ben Klieve -- Lake Street Capital Markets -- Analyst

Perfect. Next question on -- I appreciate your comments on kind of moving from first to second to third generation varieties here to reduce the -- to improve the genetics -- the underlying genetics. I'm curious how that is playing out in soybean within the U.S.? Are you -- do you expect that you're going to see -- have that same kind of genetic gap with your first-generation HB4 seed that you've been testing in the U.S.? And if so, how are you addressing that to improve the genetics in the U.S. proactively?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

So that's an excellent question as well, Ben. I think in the U.S., since we didn't have a bridging program of our own, and we rely more on third-party genetics we are less likely to observe that generic gap. I think we will be introgressing the trade into already competitive germplasm -- we are introgressing already the trade into competitive germplatform. So we don't expect to see the gap that we saw in Argentina.

And also, this is a strategy we're expanded into in Argentina as well. So you will see that the onboarding of Alex -- Alex Garcia, head of seeds is predominantly to focus on the new approach and relied on the outstanding genetics of current market participants so that we minimize sort of the germplasm gaps in new markets as we roll out the technology globally.

Ben Klieve -- Lake Street Capital Markets -- Analyst

Got it. Got it. Perfect. Last one for me, and I'll get back in queue.

And I don't know if Enrique or Federico, who this is more appropriate for, but the results over the last four quarters here as you've changed the go-to-market strategy just been exceptional, but those results are lapping. And so as you look into Q3 and beyond, when you've got that strategy already built in to your prior year results, how do you see growth evolving over the next few quarters? Is there still runway to be had from this new go-to-market strategy or are you guys expecting kind of a more material decline on a year over year -- your growth from a year-over-year basis?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

I will give you my high-level view on that, and then Enrique probably can give you more detail. I do expect to see a similar momentum in the third quarter. So there's still runway from the existing reorganization to be materialized, probably a little less from that particular aspect on the fourth quarter, but I do expect international growth to continue on a very robust manner. And we do expect HB4 to kick in, in the fourth quarter as well, helping keep the momentum that we currently have.

So I'm sort of very happy with the growth trajectory that we've been having and are fairly confident that we can keep this momentum in the next two quarters. Enrique?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I agree with Federico's comments. Ben, I think that there are some values that played into how we were able to grow through the last year, one of those is market conditions. So we had very, very attractive market conditions out of the fact that fertilizers' prices, for example, went up and that gave us a great setup to go with our product to market.

So I think that as long as those conditions remain in place, we're going to be able to keep showing growth, maybe not as aggressively as what we did until now. But there is still runway ahead, but there's some of the values that helped us that will always be outside of the control of management, right? So steel tools in the toolkit to keep growing as long as market conditions are there. And I think that as Federico mentioned as well, we're excited about to have other growth levers to pull like with HB4 wheat kicking in.

Ben Klieve -- Lake Street Capital Markets -- Analyst

Got it. Got it. Very encouraging. Well, I appreciate you all taking my questions.

That does it for me, and I'll jump back in queue.

Operator

Perfect. Thank you, Ben, for your question. [Operator instructions] And our next question comes from Brian Wright from Wolfe Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. A couple of questions. I want to start out with, if you could just educate us on the relevance of the yellow rust and what that means from a commercial standpoint?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Hi, Brian. It's good to have you on the call. I think it's obviously a concerning aspect to farmers, mostly on the commercial front. I mean consumers don't like to see rust in the flower or in the grain that will be processed.

And I think that that was an unexpected outcome of these new varieties that the rust incidence was significantly diminished. So we expect that to enable more profitable commercialization from a yield perspective in the field. It's an important sanitary aspect, but not too dramatic, I should say.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

OK. And then just following up a little bit on the improvement on the test weight, is there any quantification you want to help us out with on that?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Sure. I think that's something we observed with a significant number of farmers, particularly in the Southwest of Buenos Aires where we are currently having some of the better results on HB4 technology. These are regions that have very restrictive activity at many times with production goes into forage. The quality component here allows that need to go into industrial uses.

I think that way PH and other elements combined provide for that -- in that particular region in a manner that is very relevant. So it's not only about improving on the tonnes per hectare viewpoint, but also the quality of what's being produced allows for an end use that is more profitable than deviating to forage because of the reduced test weight. I think the improvement was above 10%, which is significant in this particular aspect.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. That's perfect. A couple more. I just wanted to understand.

On Slide 7, on the market opportunity in Argentina, could you -- on the 2.3 million hectares, is that -- is that acreage that's lower yielding predominantly, or is it just like how that addressable market was kind of defined?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

So those are hectares where we believe HB4 will provide a consistent benefit. So they are usually lower yielding. And that is not to say that we're not expecting, particularly, as we introduced the second-gen varieties, which we have presented in today's presentation, I think we can, aspirationally, target the high productivity areas as well, but we are not contemplating that today in our markets that way. So we are almost restricting the technology to the lower productivity regions, and that's where the number comes from.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Perfect. And two more if you'll bear with me or actually go back in queue, but I'd like to just go with them, if that's OK.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

No. Go ahead.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Can you remind us on kind of what the historic gross margin differences between the adjuvants versus the insecticide and the fungicides, just ballpark?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

In terms of what are the different product characteristics?

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

No gross margin differentials.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

So adjuvants tend to be our highest gross margin products in the crop protection segment. Enrique, you want to comment on the rest?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Absolutely. So adjuvants, we are in the range of 55% to 65%, usually, Brian, depending on what type of adjuvant, whether it's a high-tech adjuvant or lower tech based on vegetable oil and not silicon. But most of our adjuvants are high tech, and that is closer to toward the 65% top of the range that I just said.

Then on insecticides and fungicides, obviously that is a lower category. I think in the lower category in the segment that basically explains the decline in overall gross margin for the quarter are the third-party products. In third-party products, we make between 25% to 35% margin, sometimes even higher if it's a highly tech sale that needs to be done. But it is a business that is practical to us.

It's not strategic and we usually pay less attention to that. Now we're focused a bit more on that. And I think that to us is -- I won't say low-hanging fruit because it does require a commercial effort, but it's a provider of revenues with a margin between 25% to 35%. That's the range for the whole segment.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

I think the only thing we should highlight here is that that is why we are talking about chemicals. If you talk about bioinsecticides or in our case, biofungicide like I think so, the gross margin is more similar to that biological product. So this is upwards of probably 60%.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Absolutely. Yes. When we're talking about proprietary bioinsecticides or biofungicides, the margin is more tilted toward what we make on inoculants and seed treatment bags.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Perfect. And just last one, if I can. What was that recent acquisition kind of revenue in the quarter?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

You're meaning the one associated to the reorganization of the crop protection segment with the use of the Rizobacter sales force?

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Yes. The one that was -- came on board, I think it was last quarter.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Absolutely. Federico said it right, that is part of our reorganization. I mean, it's a commercial entity that takes care of basically sales force that is specifically allocated to commercializing third-party products across the main regions in Argentina.

They do have some -- we do have now some owned stores, but it basically focuses on low margin I refer 25% to 35% range, type of products. That came on board a couple of quarters ago, they took over the commercialization of the third-party products that are Rizobacter sales force be that before, and that allows the Rizobacter sales force to focus more on international growth and also in the micro-beaded fertilizers. That acquisition was probably had a run rate in the previous quarter -- in the quarter -- second quarter of the previous fiscal year of about $8 million, and it grew significantly now in our hands.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Probably almost sliced?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So the jump from this sort of -- a jump from $8 million to $16 million now in this particular quarter. But that --

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

So it's performing exceptionally well as well. So it's across the board. What you're integrating in is we're seeing great performance across core and acquisition revenue.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Absolutely. I think that there was -- it makes a ton of sense in terms of synergies as this commercial team that we brought on board was already commercializing some of the Rizobacter products way before we make that integration. So it makes sense that we are seeing some very strong commercial synergies coming out of the interaction between the two commercial teams.

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. Thank you so much.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

I'd like to thank you, Brian, for your questions. Our next question comes from Kemp Dolliver from Brookline Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Sorry, Kemp.

We're not getting any audio from your line. Could you please assure you're not in mute?

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hello.

Operator

Hello. We can hear you now.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thank you. So thank you, and good morning. Just to start with the growth in the ES -- I'm sorry, EU and U.S. markets.

Could you talk a little bit more about the actions you've taken to drive that, the outlook, and also a little more -- and I think you mentioned the product segment, but if you could go through the opportunity across the business in those two markets that would be helpful?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

We are thrilled with what we're seeing in Europe and the U.S. In the U.S., we've been there for many years and have reorganized the sales force under new management that provided for the incremental sales that we're seeing today, mostly on the inoculant front and the biologicals that are our most international product, if you will. So that incremental growth in the U.S. comes from an internal reorganization and a new manager in place that's been building or rebuilding the relationships on the historical products that were sold in the U.S., mostly, inoculants.

In the case of Europe, we've been putting a strategy in place by initially having a subsidiary so that we could secure product registrations, integrating our biologicals with some of the seed care products, and further consolidating some historical relationships, as you know, we are a very important partner of Syngenta. And even though that is today most material in Argentina, it is a relationship that is expanding to our other geographies. And part of the European growth comes from that relationship as well. So on a forward-going basis, we expect to see similar growth, obviously, not 146% quarter over quarter in every period, but we do expect these two geographies to become very meaningful.

And these are huge markets. The U.S., as you know, for row crops in general, and Europe for biologicals or biofertilizers that can't minimize the use or reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, I think we have a very appealing portfolio with the upcoming registration also of our biofungicide for the European market. So we do expect to see a very strong performance in the quarters to come.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I would only add to that, Kemp, that I think the part that it makes it even more exciting is that these two geographies, North America and Europe brought almost a quarter of the growth in gross profit. So it's not only attractive markets from the size perspective, but also markets that are very profitable to us. So that is something that makes us put more focus and effort into building more infrastructure to keep growing.

Having said that, I think that still this needs to be evaluated in the sort of like a context of the full season in those countries, and it has just gotten started. So I think that we are here to see what the final result will be for the full season, and that is going to unfold in the second quarter, third quarter, and fourth quarter.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Super. And in the U.S., is this revitalized sales effort, the team you can leverage, or when you roll out the HB4 products, will that require a separate marketing effort?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

I think there might be some support from the existing team, but we are more inclined to thinking of an independent effort for the HB4 program in the U.S. This is a team that specializes on biologicals, particularly seed treatment. We will obviously use the HB4 channel to commercialize biologicals and seed treatments, but the specificity of the seed business will require a dedicated marketing and commercial effort with a different level of expertise. So some synergies, some support, but for the most part, these will be two different teams.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. And the guidance regarding Eco Wheat's very helpful. So a couple of questions related to the assumptions. First for the market opportunity, over what time frame do you think that realization is possible? Is that five years, 10 years? What's your thinking about the adoption curve?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

So we believe it's closer to 5 than to 10. It's up three years out, but that's as much as I would like to say now.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

That's fair enough. And with regard to the EBITDA guidance, what revenue does that -- what level of revenue does that imply?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

So you can think of this as a 30% to 35% EBITDA margin business. So that you can then play with the numbers and get your revenues, or vice versa. Obviously, there might be some price pressure as we try to fully penetrate. So it's not like we're going to keep steady pricing, but there might be additional technologies brought into the product offering.

So I think you can use that to sort of play with the numbers and come to some very close understanding of what we expect.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. And that would apply to both soy and wheat?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes. In general, yes. I think that margins are similar. Remember that we do some equity accounting for a JV with Florimond Desprez that we don't do in soybeans, but EBITDA margin-wise, yes.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

So for -- in soy, we're fully owned the technology which part of the technology and the product was co-financed by Florimond Desprez?

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. And my last product -- or I'm sorry, my last question relates to China. There have been some regulatory changes involving GMO wheat and -- I'm sorry, soy and corn, they appear to focus on domestic development of these products. Do you have a -- do you have any thoughts on how that move impacts your application? It seems like a step in the right direction, but it's very hard to determine everything that may be going on there?

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Absolutely. I think it is a step in the right direction. It is a step that is mostly designed for the in-country cultivation process and for some local developers that have today products in their pipelines that can be applied in China.

Unfortunately, we have not seen sort of a similar attitude toward international approvals. So if you look at the last two innings of the Chinese regulators, they have mostly restricted approvals to domestic market issues that have not approved any new soy for feed and food importation, for instance. So it is a process that is difficult to that unlike what we had with Brazil CTNBio that we knew every month what to expect, the Chinese process is more difficult to track. We are now in the process of requesting Argentine authorities to review the current approval.

This is an approval that takes back to 2015. So they have -- seven years have passed already, and we're still waiting for the Chinese clearance. So I think that this can be made for a time limitation on the Chinese plus here in Argentina, particularly for a technology that has already been approved in the U.S., in Brazil, in Paraguay, in Canada. So most of the relevant production geographies without any kind of consideration to the Chinese regulatory process.

So we do expect the Chinese approval to come, but we are taking a more proactive stance, particularly with the Argentine authorities to try to remove that restriction and be able to freely commercialize HB4 in the upcoming season. Seven years is not atypical for them.

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

No. But I think it's enough time to make a decision. But we're cautiously optimistic, I should say, even though we did expect this last year, but we're still waiting.

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

Very good. Thank you.

Operator

Perfect. Thank you, Kemp, for your questions. At this time, there are no further questions. I now would like to pass the call back over to Federico Trucco, for any final remarks.

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, first, I want to thank everyone again for joining us today. I think we had a very good quarter. We are very enthusiastic about the state of our business and the prospects ahead. I mean to say bluntly, we are on fire and delighted to be on fire and hopefully, we can keep on bringing similar performances in the quarters to come.

So not much more. Wish everyone a happy Thursday and a good end to this week. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 54 minutes

Call participants:

Rodrigo Krause -- Head of Investor Relations

Federico Trucco -- Chief Executive Officer

Enrique Lopez Lecube -- Chief Financial Officer

Ben Klieve -- Lake Street Capital Markets -- Analyst

Brian Wright -- Wolfe Capital Markets -- Analyst

Kemp Dolliver -- Brookline Capital Markets -- Analyst

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