Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Item 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
The Company is exposed to various forms of market risk as a part of its ongoing business practices including commodity price risk, interest rate risk, foreign currency exchange rate risk, and investment risk, among others.
Commodity Price Risk: The Company is subject to commodity price risk through grain, lean hog, natural gas, and diesel fuel markets. To reduce these exposures and offset the fluctuations caused by changes in market conditions, the Company employs hedging programs. These programs utilize futures, swaps, and options contracts and are accounted for as cash flow hedges. The fair value of the Company’s cash flow commodity contracts as of October 27, 2024, was $(5.9) million compared to $(17.1) million as of October 29, 2023. The Company measures its market risk exposure on its cash flow commodity contracts using a sensitivity analysis, which considers a hypothetical 10 percent change in the market prices. A 10 percent decrease in the market price would have negatively impacted the fair value of the Company’s cash flow commodity contracts as of October 27, 2024, by $26.7 million, which in turn would lower the Company’s future cost on purchased commodities by a similar amount.
Interest Rate Risk : The Company is subject to interest rate risk primarily from changes in fair value of long-term fixed rate debt. As of October 27, 2024, the Company’s long-term debt had a fair value of $2.5 billion compared to $2.7 billion as of October 29, 2023. The Company measures its market risk exposure of long-term fixed rate debt using a sensitivity analysis, which considers a 10 percent change in interest rates. A 10 percent decrease in interest rates would have positively impacted the fair value of the Company’s long-term debt as of October 27, 2024, by $73.8 million. A 10 percent increase would have negatively impacted the long-term debt by $68.9 million.
Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk: The fair values of certain of the Company’s assets are subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. The Company’s net asset position in foreign currencies as of October 27, 2024, was $1.2 billion, compared to $1.1 billion as of October 29, 2023, with most of the exposure existing in Chinese yuan, Indonesian rupiah and Brazilian real. The Company currently does not use market risk sensitive instruments to manage this risk.
Investment Risk: The Company has corporate-owned life insurance policies classified as trading securities as part of a rabbi trust to fund certain supplemental executive retirement plans and deferred income plans. As of October 27, 2024, the balance of these securities totaled $209.7 million compared to $188.2 million as of October 29, 2023. The rabbi trust is invested primarily in fixed income funds. The Company is subject to market risk due to fluctuations in the value of the remaining investments as unrealized gains and losses associated with these securities are included in the Company’s net earnings on a mark-to-market basis. A 10 percent decline in the value of the investments not held in fixed income funds would have negatively impacted the Company’s pre-tax earnings by approximately $10.0 million, while a 10 percent increase in value would have a positive impact of the same amount.
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