Deere & Company (DE)

Deere & Company, the maker of John Deere farm, lawn, construction and forestry machines, reported on 20 August 2026 that its third-quarter net income rose to $1.379 billion from $1.289 billion a year earlier 1. Revenue grew 5 percent to $12.608 billion 1. The company raised its forecast for fiscal 2026 net income to $4.75 billion to $5.00 billion 1.

The gain came from smaller machines and building equipment, not from the big farm machines that earn most of Deere's profit in good years 1. Small Agriculture & Turf sales rose 12 percent and Construction & Forestry sales rose 18 percent, while Production & Precision Agriculture sales fell 6 percent 1.

Deere also booked $110 million of tariff refunds in the quarter, after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law on 20 February 2026 13. Those refunds trimmed what the tariffs cost it 3.

Chief executive John May said the company still sees 2026 as the bottom of the current farm machine cycle, pointing to early orders and healthier used-machine stocks 1. The open question is whether the fourth quarter, which closes the fiscal year, bears that out for the large farm machines 1.

John Deere has built farm equipment since 1837, and the company says it all started with a steel plow 415. Deere & Company was incorporated in Delaware in 1958 4.

Its largest step beyond farming came in 2017, when Deere agreed to buy the Wirtgen Group, a German maker of road construction machines 11. The deal was valued at about EUR 4.6 billion, or $5.2 billion at the time, including the debt Deere took on 11. Deere completed it on 1 December 2017, adding about 8,200 employees and brands for milling, paving and compaction 12.

Deere's construction chief at the time, Max Guinn, argued that road building spending had grown faster than construction as a whole and tended to be less cyclical 11. Samuel Allen, then chief executive, called agriculture and construction the company's two global growth businesses 11.

In fiscal 2020, a year shaped by the pandemic, revenue fell 9 percent to $35.54 billion and net income slipped to $2.751 billion from $3.253 billion 10. John May, chief executive since 2019, thanked employees, dealers and suppliers for keeping operations running safely 104.

Demand came back hard in fiscal 2021: revenue rose 24 percent to $44.024 billion and net income more than doubled to $5.963 billion 9. That year also brought contract talks with its largest union, which kept workers away until a six-year agreement with the United Auto Workers was ratified, May said 9.

The peak came in fiscal 2023, when revenue rose 16 percent to $61.251 billion and net income reached $10.166 billion 8. May credited the Smart Industrial Operating Model, Deere's plan to organize around how customers farm and build and to put more technology into its machines 84.

Then demand turned down: fiscal 2024 revenue fell 16 percent to $51.716 billion, with net income of $7.100 billion 7. May said Deere had proactively adjusted its operations to the harder market 7.

Fiscal 2025 was weaker again: revenue fell 12 percent to $45.684 billion and net income was $5.027 billion 6. The annual report blames low crop prices, high interest rates early in the year and large stocks of used machines, plus about $600 million of new tariff costs 4.

Deere also kept investing abroad: it celebrated 25 years of operations in Brazil in June 2025, after opening a research center for tropical farming in Indaiatuba, Brazil, in 2024 4.

Even so, May called it the company's best result yet for that point in the farm cycle, crediting structural changes made over earlier years 6. In 2025 Deere also brought in Brazil's Banco Bradesco as a 50 percent owner of its Brazilian bank, Banco John Deere 4.

Production & Precision Agriculture

This business makes the big machines for large grain, cotton and sugarcane farms: large tractors, combines, cotton pickers, sugarcane harvesters, sprayers, planters and tillage tools 4. It sold $17.3 billion in fiscal 2025, 45 percent of the equipment businesses' sales 4.

It is the business the farm downturn hits hardest: third-quarter 2026 sales fell 6 percent to about $4.0 billion on lower shipments 1. Deere expects its fiscal 2026 sales to fall about 10 percent 1.

Its best-known technology is See & Spray, a precision spraying system built on 36 cameras along the sprayer's boom and frame 25. Deere used to charge $1 an acre for fallow ground sprayed this way, and from 1 April it stopped charging for those acres, AgTechNavigator reported in April 2026 25.

Sprayers for model year 2027 add crops such as wheat, canola and sugar beets, and a new See & Scout feature turns the same cameras into maps of weeds and emerged plants 25. Beside the John Deere name it sells sprayers as Hagie and Mazzotti, planters as Monosem and farm software as Harvest Profit and Sentera 4.

Small Agriculture & Turf

This business makes smaller tractors, hay and forage machines, riding mowers, golf course equipment and utility vehicles for dairy and livestock farms, orchards, homeowners and groundskeepers 4. It sold $10.2 billion in fiscal 2025, 26 percent of equipment sales 4. Most of its mid-size tractors are built in Europe and most small tractors in India 4.

It has grown in 2026: third-quarter sales rose 12 percent to about $3.4 billion and operating profit rose 28 percent to $622 million 1. Deere expects its fiscal 2026 sales to rise about 15 percent, with dairy and livestock farmers and steady mowing demand behind it 13.

Some of its lawn products sell through The Home Depot and Lowe's, and its main rivals in farm and turf machines include AGCO, CLAAS, CNH Industrial, Kubota and Toro 4.

Construction & Forestry

This business makes excavators, wheel loaders, dozers, backhoes, skid steers and forestry machines, plus road machines under the Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm, Kleemann and Benninghoven names 4. It sold $11.4 billion in fiscal 2025, 29 percent of equipment sales 4.

Third-quarter 2026 sales rose 18 percent to about $3.6 billion and operating profit rose 84 percent to $436 million, mostly on higher prices 1. The quarterly report credits infrastructure, data center and energy projects and rental fleet buying for stronger US construction demand 3.

In February 2026 Deere bought Tenna, a US company whose software tracks mixed fleets of jobsite equipment, for $439 million 3. Its construction rivals include Caterpillar, Komatsu, Volvo, CNH Industrial and Chinese makers such as SANY, XCMG and Liugong 4.

John Deere Financial

Deere's lending arm finances farmers' and builders' purchases from dealers and the dealers' own stocks of machines, mostly through John Deere Capital Corporation in the US 4. It earned $219 million in the third quarter, up from $205 million, on wider lending margins, and Deere expects about $870 million for the year 1.

Plants, dealers and people

In the US and Canada Deere owns and runs 23 factory sites and leases four more, and it runs 45 factory sites in other countries 4. Key plants include Harvester Works in East Moline, Illinois, the Des Moines works in Iowa and Wirtgen's factories in Germany 4.

It sells through about 2,050 independent dealer locations in the US and Canada, and through distributors and dealers in more than 100 other countries 4. Deere had about 73,100 employees on 2 November 2025, 27,000 of them in the US 4.

Who runs it

John May has been chief executive since 2019 and chairman since 2020 4. The finance chief's seat changed in 2026: Joshua Jepsen resigned effective 19 February, and Brent Norwood, who joined Deere full time in 2013, took the job on 1 May 1314.

Cargill's chief executive Brian Sikes joined the board in December 2025, taking it to 11 members, 10 of them independent 16. In March 2026 the board gave senior officers one-time share awards earned over five fiscal years ending in October 2030, measured by profit above the cost of capital 18.

Current problems

Repair rights have been Deere's main legal fight 2421. In April 2026 Deere agreed to pay $99 million to settle a farmers' class action accusing it of monopolizing repairs, while denying wrongdoing, the Associated Press reported 24.

On 8 July 2026 Deere settled the lawsuit the Federal Trade Commission and five states filed in 2025 3. It agreed to give farmers and independent shops the same repair resources its dealers get, under the FTC's supervision for 10 years 21.

Tariffs remain a cost: net of refunds, new import tariffs cost Deere $502 million directly in the first nine months of fiscal 2026 3. In October 2026 the FTC and the Department of Agriculture opened a public inquiry into how farm equipment is made, sold and repaired 23.

The umbrella, in words

Deere's brands beyond John Deere include Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm, Kleemann, Benninghoven and Ciber in road building, Waratah forestry heads, and Hagie, Monosem, PLA and GUSS in farm machines 4. Its subsidiaries exhibit names John Deere Capital Corporation, John Deere Construction & Forestry Company, Joseph Vögele AG and Wirtgen America among its companies, and leaves out one hundred seventy-seven smaller consolidated ones 5.

Deere owns all the voting shares of John Deere Capital Corporation, and since 2025 Banco Bradesco has been a 50 percent owner of Banco John Deere in Brazil 4. Its newest technology purchases include Tenna in construction and the aerial imaging company Sentera 325.

Deere's 2026 proxy statement lists three holders above 5 percent: Cascade Investment, controlled by Bill Gates, with 8.74 percent, Vanguard with 8.01 percent and BlackRock with 6.36 percent 19. In a later Schedule 13G, Vanguard Capital Management reported 7.04 percent as of 31 March 2026 20.

Deere's own forecast, given on 20 August 2026, is fiscal 2026 net income of $4.75 billion to $5.00 billion, up from the $4.00 billion to $4.75 billion it first forecast in November 2025 16.

It expects Production & Precision Agriculture sales down about 10 percent, Small Agriculture & Turf up about 15 percent and Construction & Forestry up about 20 percent 1. For the equipment businesses it plans capital spending of about $1.3 billion and expects operating cash flow of $5.0 billion to $5.5 billion 2.

The company expects US and Canadian sales of large farm machines to fall 15 to 20 percent across the industry in fiscal 2026, and construction equipment sales there to rise 5 to 10 percent 1.

The quarterly report expects total net sales to rise in 2026 from 2025, with gains in construction and small farm machines more than offsetting the drop in large farm machines 3.

AgTechNavigator reported in April 2026 that Deere was preparing to sell model year 2027 sprayers, with second-generation See & Spray machines reaching farms later that year and most the year after 25.

In December 2025 Deere refined its Leap Ambitions, its goals for the years toward 2030, built on automation, autonomy, digital tools and selling technology as a service 4. The annual report also says Deere plans hybrid-electric and battery-electric construction machines 4.

Under the FTC settlement, Deere agreed to release the repair functions still missing from its PRO Service tool by 31 December 2026, the FTC chairman wrote 22. Comments on the FTC and USDA inquiry into farm equipment markets are due by 7 December 2026 23.

Director Dmitri Stockton told the board on 26 May 2026 that he would not stand for re-election at the 2027 annual meeting 17. The contract with the United Auto Workers, covering about 7,600 US production workers, runs to 1 November 2027 4.