AGCO have "good momentum" in the North American market currently, according to the group's senior vice president and chief financial officer Damon Audia.

Audia was interviewed as part of the 2026 Wells Fargo Industrials & Materials Conference that took place in Chicago, Illinois, and streamed online

Well Fargo's securities research director, Jerry Revich was tasked with asking Audia questions surrounding AGCO's operations.

When asked about the "Fendt opportunity in North America", Audia said: "We're seeing some real tangible results in our market share.

"We've been rolling out these Fendt dealers here in the North American market and our Latin American market."

According to Audia, AGCO today have just over 80% of the "white space" covered, referring to gaps in a company's market offerings where they are not meeting customer needs.

FarmerCore

According to Audia, the key to solving AGCO's previous 'white space' issue was its 'FarmerCore' initiative.

This is an on-farm service and distribution model designed to bring dealerships directly to machines in need of repair.

Instead of agricultural operators transporting broken machinery to a distant dealer, they are visited by a mobile technician with diagnostic tools, aimed at significantly reducing downtime.

As a result, rather than having larger repair facilities, AGCO is focused on building localised parts depos.

"Our dealers love this because their break even cost goes down," he explained.

"Instead of building these large brick-and-mortar stores with 10 or 12 bays, you build a smaller store, three or four bays.

"You add your mobile trucks so you are able to cover more 'white space'. You're able to shift your resources to where the demand is in your territory".

Audia said that AGCO loves the 'FarmerCore' design because it is seeing record customer satisfaction.

"Farmers are getting served how they want.

"The Fendt dealership rollout with 'FarmerCore' has been extremely successful," he added.

Dealerships

When asked about getting 100% coverage of 'white space', Audia responded that the company will never reach that level of coverage.

"I'd say our goal is to get into the low to mid-90s, and you'll see that more over the next several years," he said.

According to Audia, it is critically important that AGCO pick the right dealers to maintain good customer care.

"We have more demand to be a Fendt dealer than what we have an appetite because every dealer has got to go through a qualification process."

Audia says that dealers must have the capital to be able to invest in loaner machines and "the right type of technicians".

"At the end of the day, they're our face to our customer in a lot of ways.

"We want to make sure that when they go on the farm and they bring Fendt to that farm, it helps that farmer understand they're getting the best of the best," Audia said.

Revich asked Audia about what proportion of distribution construction brand Caterpillar do for them.

AGCO bought former Caterpillar tracked tractor brand Challenger in 2002, and the companies have occasionally collaborated since.

Audia confirmed that in North America, "the majority of our revenues in the North America still are coming from a Cat-affiliated type dealer.

"So our largest dealers here in North America would be Ziegler and Butler here in the Midwest part of the country, and both of them have a strong Cat business still."

In relation to South America, Audia said: "Massey Ferguson has its own distribution channel. And then for Fendt, it's usually complementing to Valtra.

"When you walk into these large dealerships in the Mato Grosso region [in Brazil], you turn to the right and it's all Fendt, you turn to the left and it's Valtra."

According to Audia, that dealer is servicing two different types of farmers.

"You have the large professional growers who are tech seeking, looking for maximum fuel efficiency; they're going to appeal to Fendt," he explained.

"Then when you look at the ones who are a little bit more value-orientated or more sugarcane-orientated where Valtra has a really strong history and legacy there, that dealer is going to service them with Valtra.

"Think of Massey as one channel and then Fendt/Valtra as a complementary channel".

Mid-cycle performance

When asked about Fendt revenue footprint in the Americas, Audia mentioned that the company is sitting around 85% of midcycle.

"Go back a couple of years as a company, we were sitting at around 109% of mid-cycle," he added.

This 29% drop mid-cycle has made it a much tougher task to for Fendt to achieve profitability this year.

"So in large ag this year, North America, we will be in the 70s - so 72% of mid-cycle.

"So we are sub-trough from what we would normally have talked about for our North American market," Audia said.

However, he claimed that combines and high horsepower tractors are sitting "significantly below that 85%" of mid-cycle.

Audia went through Fendt's revenue figures, saying that the German agricultural giant's revenue for 2024 between North and South America was around $1.4 billion.

"With the industries coming down in both of those regions, we were just under $1 billion last year - so sub-$1 billion right now," Audia confirmed.

"Go back a couple of years, there was little to no revenue from Fendt in South America.

"We feel good about the share we're gaining, and we feel good about the opportunity to continue to gain share where a farmer picks what they choose to trade in.

"Again, we'll leave it to them," Audia concluded.