CHS announces plans to return $600 million to owners

CHS Inc., the nation's leading agribusiness cooperative, has announced it intends to return $600 million in cash patronage and equity redemptions to its owners in calendar year 2025. The planned distribution is a tangible demonstration of the cooperative's commitment to sharing profits with its owners and strengthening rural communities.

The CHS Board of Directors determines the total amount of cash to be returned to CHS owners at the close of each fiscal year in the form of cash patronage and redeemed equity. Based on business done with CHS in fiscal year 2024, which ended on Aug. 31, 2024, the CHS Board has elected to return $300 million in cash patronage and $300 million through equity redemptions to CHS owners. This is the third highest amount of cash returns to owners in CHS history.

CHS owners are member cooperatives and farmer-owners in communities across rural America. When the cash returns earmarked for distribution in 2025 are complete, CHS will have returned more than $2.3 billion to owners over the past three years and nearly $3.5 billion to owners over the past 10 years.

"The cooperative model is based on the concept of building strength by working together. As a leading cooperative, CHS is committed to sharing that financial strength with our owners, the farmers, ranchers and cooperatives who make up rural America," said Dan Schurr, chair of the CHS Board of Directors. "As CHS continues to build capabilities and efficiencies to better serve our owners, customers and communities, we are acting on our purpose of creating connections to empower agriculture."

Final financial results for fiscal year 2024 are expected to be announced in November 2024. Additional patronage-related details will be available at that time, including the amount of fiscal year 2024 patronage equity certificates that will be issued to CHS members.

About CHS

CHS Inc. (www.chsinc.com) creates connections to empower agriculture. As a leading global agribusiness and the largest farmer-owned cooperative in the United States, CHS serves customers in 65 countries and employs nearly 10,000 people worldwide. We provide critical crop inputs, market access and risk management services that help farmers feed the world. Our diversified agronomy, grains, foods and energy businesses recorded revenues of $45.6 billion in fiscal year 2023. We advance sustainability through our commitment to being stewards of the environment, building economic viability and strengthening community and employee well-being.

This document and other CHS Inc. publicly available documents contain, and CHS officers, directors and representatives may from time to time make, "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "will" and similar references to future periods. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on CHS current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of its businesses, financial condition and results of operations, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of CHS control. CHS actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause CHS actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements are discussed or identified in CHS filings made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the "Risk Factors" discussion in Item 1A of CHS Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2023. These factors may include changes in commodity prices; the impact of government policies, mandates, regulations and trade agreements; global and regional political, economic, legal and other risks of doing business globally; the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine; the escalation of conflict in the Middle East; the impact of inflation; the impact of epidemics, pandemics, outbreaks of disease and other adverse public health developments, including COVID-19; the impact of market acceptance of alternatives to refined petroleum products; consolidation among our suppliers and customers; nonperformance by contractual counterparties; changes in federal income tax laws or our tax status; the impact of compliance or noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations; the impact of any governmental investigations; the impact of environmental liabilities and litigation; actual or perceived quality, safety or health risks associated with our products; the impact of seasonality; the effectiveness of our risk management strategies; business interruptions, casualty losses and supply chain issues; the impact of workforce factors; our funding needs and financing sources; financial institutions' and other capital sources' policies concerning energy-related businesses; technological improvements that decrease the demand for our agronomy and energy products; our ability to complete, integrate and benefit from acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures, divestitures and other nonordinary course-of-business events; security breaches or other disruptions to our information technology systems or assets; the impact of our environmental, social and governance practices, including failures or delays in achieving our strategies or expectations related to climate change or other environmental matters; the impairment of long-lived assets; the impact of bank failures; and other factors affecting our businesses generally. Any forward-looking statements made by CHS in this document are based only on information currently available to CHS and speak only as of the date on which the statement is made. CHS undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise except as required by applicable law.

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