Cargill Pays Record $1.4 Billion to Shareholders

USAgNet - 08/25/2025

Cargill Inc. paid a record dividend to the billionaire families who control the world's biggest agricultural commodities trader after profits surged 44% in its most recent financial year.

The largest privately held company in the U.S. by revenue paid out almost $1.5 billion to shareholders in the year ended May 31, according to the company's audited annual accounts seen by Bloomberg News. That's up almost 25% from a year earlier and eclipsed the previous record dividend in 2022, when Cargill made the most money in its 160-year history.

Cargill, which counts at least a dozen billionaires among its shareholders, is owned by the heirs of William Wallace Cargill. The families are split into two branches: the Cargills and the MacMillans. Senior management and other employees also own a small stake.

The Minneapolis-based company benefited from its $4.5 billion acquisition of chicken producer Sanderson Farms Inc. in a joint venture with Continental Grain Co. That business helped drive net income to $3.6 billion, up from $2.5 billion a year earlier, the accounts showed.

Lower crop prices made it cheaper to feed animals. At the same time, consumers turned to chicken to replace pricey beef after the U.S. cattle herd fell to the lowest in seven decades.

Cargill, which stopped publicly reporting its results during the pandemic, declined to comment.

Profits were still almost half of the record $6.7 billion earned in 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine upended markets. That year Cargill paid its family owners $1.2 billion.

The latest payout included the November approval of a special dividend of $501 million.

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