ADM recorded a 5.8% increase in its full-year revenues as three of the company’s four business segments grew.

For the year ended 31 December, the grain trader posted revenues of $64.34 billion. Adjusted operating profit rose 25.9% to $3.36 billion.

The company’s largest segment, origination, recorded a 3.9% increase in revenues for the year but struggled in the fourth quarter. In the final three months of the year, the unit’s adjusted operating profit dipped 29.9% to $183 million despite increased exports of corn and soybeans to markets outside of China.

In the firm’s nutrition unit, which includes Wild Flavors & Specialty Ingredients, both full-year revenues and operating profit were up as the firm benefitted from a strong demand for lecithin.

ADM CEO Juan Luciano said: “Our team executed well, delivering strong year-over-year profit growth in the fourth quarter. Looking back on the full year, the team did a great job focusing on the items we could control, as we continued innovating to serve customer needs and advancing our strategic priorities.

“Our effective management through complicated and rapidly changing trade, geopolitical and market conditions helped deliver an impressively strong 2018 that included solid profit growth, improved returns on invested capital and higher cash flows.

“We will continue working to deliver shareholder value in 2019 by vigorously executing our strategy, including aggressively working to improve execution in select businesses, accelerating our readiness efforts to deliver increasing value, and harvesting the contributions from our acquisitions and organic growth investments. By continuing to pull the levers under our control, we are positioning ourselves to grow profits and returns in 2019 and beyond.”

Last year, ADM restructured its business into four segments to give it greater capacity to differentiate its product portfolio, drive innovation and evolve to meet changing consumer demands.

The firm also announced partnerships with Cargill, creating Grainbridge, a new technology joint venture in North America, and a soybean business in Egypt.