ICL Group (ICL)

Potash and Specialty Phosphate, No Nitrogen

ICL earns from potash and specialty phosphate and makes no commodity nitrogen, so it shows how a fertiliser producer with other businesses differs from the pure nutrient companies. FY2025 adjusted EBITDA was $1,488M. Potash ($552M) and Phosphate Solutions ($528M), which sells specialty phosphates to food and industrial customers as well as fertiliser, earned almost equal amounts. Industrial Products ($280M, mainly bromine-based chemicals) and Growing Solutions ($213M, specialty crop nutrition) earned $493M between them. The four segments add to $1,573M, $85M more than the group figure, which also carries costs and eliminations outside the segments.

Most of ICL's potash comes from Dead Sea evaporation ponds in Israel. It also mines in Spain. It produced 4.38M t in FY2025 and sold 4.32M t. The N/P/K guide sets it beside nitrogen-only CF Industries and Nutrien, which makes all three nutrients.

ICL realised $333/t for potash in FY2025 on a CIF basis: delivered to the customer's port with freight and insurance paid, averaged over every market it ships to. Mosaic realised $255/t at the mine and Nutrien $252/t net of freight, and potash landed in Brazil averaged $347.5/t in 2025 (World Bank). The prices are measured at different places, so the gaps between them are not margins: ICL's includes the freight and insurance that Mosaic's and Nutrien's leave out.

How the Numbers Read

ICL's potash and phosphate earnings are more evenly split than Mosaic's, where potash ($1,183M) out-earned phosphate ($917M) in FY2025.

ICL files phosphate volumes but not phosphate selling prices. In 2025 the Phosphate Solutions segment produced 1.7M t of phosphate fertilisers, 1.2M t of green phosphoric acid (the fertiliser-grade acid) and 4.7M t of enriched phosphate rock. Without prices, a margin per tonne cannot be built the way Mosaic's filings allow.

Reported net financial liabilities were $2,260M at 31 December 2025. ICL's bank covenants measure debt and EBITDA their own way: on that basis net debt was 1.35x covenant EBITDA of $1,434M, against a ceiling of 3.5x.

How You Would Value a Business Like This

No single nutrient multiple fits a mix of potash, specialty phosphate, bromine chemicals and crop nutrition. A sum of the parts values each segment on its own earnings. Industrial Products and Growing Solutions earned a third of the FY2025 total, and neither is priced off a nutrient benchmark.

For the potash segment, the mid-cycle earnings guide rebuilds earnings at a long-run price landed in Brazil. Applied to ICL, that price needs moving from Brazil to ICL's CIF mix of markets, and it applies to potash tonnes sold (4.32M t) alone, leaving out the salt, magnesium and other products the segment also sells.

ICL files no potash cash cost per tonne, so do not borrow another producer's figure from the cost curve guide without a source.

What to Watch in the Financials

Potash price through the year. The fourth quarter of 2025 averaged $348/t CIF, above the $333/t full-year figure.

Covenant headroom. The year-end covenant ratio against its 3.5x ceiling.

Key Risks

Commodity potash inside a specialty group. Potash sells at the world price, and the specialty businesses only cushion a downturn in it.