This is Part One of the Latticework Business Intelligence audio program on Mosaic, from Latticework by MOI Global. It is the first of two audio programs that accompany our research report on The Mosaic Company (NYSE: MOS), and it is the story of the company, told for a general audience. The account is built from documented scenes, with the people named, the dates given, and the participants quoted in their own words. It assumes no background in business or finance and explains its terms, from potash, phosphate rock and ground freezing to converters, gypsum stacks, tailings dams and countervailing duties, as they arrive. This episode is free.
The program runs from 1881 to October 2026, and from the Peace River in central Florida, Tennessee and Germany to Saskatchewan, Chicago, Minneapolis, Louisiana, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. Its people include the engineers and geologists of International Minerals & Chemical, known as IMC, who sank a shaft through water-bearing sand to the potash at Esterhazy. They include the founders of the business in Tennessee, Thomas Meadows and Oscar Dortch, and their partner Waldemar Schmidtmann, whose family controlled one of Germany’s largest potash mines, and Allan Blakeney, the Saskatchewan premier who brought in the bill that let the province buy potash mines. Four chief executives carry Mosaic’s own years: Fritz Corrigan, who launched it; Jim Prokopanko, who ran it through the boom of 2008; Joc O’Rourke, the mining engineer hired from Barrick Gold; and Bruce Bodine, who grew up near the Florida mines. Greg Page of Cargill negotiated Cargill’s departure, with the trusts of Margaret A. Cargill at the table. The program follows how the phosphate rock of Florida and the potash ore of Saskatchewan, laid down by ancient seas, passed from owner to owner until they came to Mosaic.
Part One stands on its own. It tells how Mosaic took its present shape, from the first Florida phosphate miners of the 1880s to October 2026, and it carries no valuation. The economics of the business, and the company as an investment, are the subject of Part Two and of the written report.
The program runs in fifteen sections:
The Frozen Shaft. In 1955 IMC leases more than 500,000 acres around Esterhazy, a Saskatchewan farm town, above a bed of potash that lies beneath the Blairmore, a layer of loose, water-soaked sand. It freezes the ground around the line of its K1 shaft with chilled brine, and on June 8, 1962 the shaft reaches the potash.
Bone Valley. In 1881 an Army engineer surveying the Peace River finds phosphate pebbles south of Fort Meade, and in 1897 Thomas Meadows and Oscar Dortch start the business in Tennessee. Their partner, Waldemar Schmidtmann, contracts in 1909 to sell potash to American buyers below the German syndicate’s prices, and a reference history of the company records that “By 1939 IAC was the largest producer of phosphate rock in the world.”
Ten Mines in Saskatchewan. Five of the seventeen potash shafts begun in the province meet major inflows of water, and between 1966 and 1970 twelve companies open ten mines while the price falls by nearly half. Premier Allan Blakeney introduces the bill to buy potash mines on November 19, 1975, and from January 1978 part of the ore inside IMC’s mine at Esterhazy belongs to the province.
Two Companies in a Slump. Cargill, the Minneapolis grain merchant, agrees in 1985 to buy most of Gardinier, a phosphate company in Chapter 11, and its Riverview plant on Tampa Bay becomes Cargill’s first venture in phosphate fertilizers. IMC’s fertilizer business, floated in 1988, comes to run every Saskatchewan mine Mosaic runs in 2026 and carries more than $3 billion of long-term debt by the end of 1998. On August 15, 2003 Cargill proposes to take about 70 percent of a combined company.
Three Thousand Names. Cargill and IMC Global announce their combination on January 27, 2004, and pick the name Mosaic from more than 3,000 candidates. The deal closes on October 22, 2004, with Cargill taking two-thirds of the new company for no cash. Seven weeks later Fritz Corrigan, the founding chief executive, stops production at the Green Bay plant, saying phosphate margins are low in part because ammonia prices are near record highs.
The Boom of 2008. Under Jim Prokopanko, Mosaic repays $1 billion of long-term debt early in eight months of 2007, and on June 9, 2008 Fitch and Standard & Poor’s raise its debt to investment grade. In the year to May 2008 it earns about $2.1 billion, five times the year before.
Margaret Cargill’s Trusts. After Margaret A. Cargill’s death in 2006, Cargill seeks to pass its two-thirds of Mosaic to its own shareholders, chiefly her trusts. A special committee of Mosaic’s independent directors raises the fee Cargill would owe for walking away from $25 million to $200 million. The split-off closes on May 25, 2011, approved by more than 98 percent of the votes cast by Mosaic’s other shareholders.
Buying in the Trough. After Uralkali leaves its export agency with Belaruskali in July 2013, Mosaic’s potash price falls by about a quarter, and Mosaic answers by buying. It agrees on August 5, 2013 to build a phosphate complex in Saudi Arabia with Ma’aden and SABIC and buys CF Industries’ Florida phosphate business for about $1.17 billion of cash. In 2014 it spends about $2.76 billion on its own shares, most of them from Margaret Cargill’s trusts.
Thirty-Six Years of Water. From December 29, 1985 brine flows into the K2 mine at Esterhazy, and IMC and then Mosaic seal and pump it for 36 years while mining goes on. Mosaic builds K3, a third mine with shafts of its own, and on June 4, 2021 stops mining at K1 and K2 about nine months ahead of plan.
The Gypsum Stacks. Making phosphoric acid leaves phosphogypsum, piled in stacks 100 to 200 feet high, and sinkholes open under stacks at New Wales in 1994 and 2016. Under consent decrees announced on October 1, 2015, Mosaic puts $630 million into trusts in August 2016 to pay for closing its stacks and caring for them afterward.
Brazil. In 2004 Cargill brings Mosaic a Brazilian blending and distribution business that Fritz Corrigan calls “a steadier business.” Mosaic sells its Fosfertil interest to Vale in 2010 for about $1.0 billion of cash, and in January 2018 buys Vale Fertilizantes for $1.08 billion of cash and about 34 million new shares. In 2025 Mosaic Fertilizantes earns $567 million of adjusted EBITDA, its best year since the boom of 2021 and 2022.
The Mining Engineer. Joc O’Rourke, hired from Barrick Gold in 2008, becomes chief executive on August 5, 2015, the first not to have come up through Cargill. He sees the Vale purchase through and moves the head office to the Tampa area in 2018. In 2022 Mosaic’s operating earnings, about $4.8 billion, exceed those of the seven years from 2014 to 2020 together.
The Boy in the Station Wagon. Bruce Bodine, who looked for the draglines from the back of his family’s station wagon on drives through Mulberry, works inside IMC as a contract engineer before it hires him in 1999. He runs Four Corners, Esterhazy and the potash business and becomes chief executive on January 1, 2024. After the storms of 2024, repairs and long maintenance shutdowns keep the phosphate plants to about 6.3 million tonnes in 2025, though in August they reach their target rate and hold it for several consecutive weeks.
Sulfur. After the Strait of Hormuz closes to most traffic on March 2, 2026, sulfur in Mosaic’s costs reaches $522 a long ton, against $138 two years earlier. Mosaic idles Faustina’s phosphate production, runs Bartow at 40 percent of its targeted rate and sells $2.0 billion of new notes, so that no bond falls due before 2029. On October 5 a notice says South Fort Meade, one of its three active Florida rock mines, will idle from December 8, giving the supply of sulfur as the reason.
What Mosaic Owns. In October 2026 Mosaic holds about 96 million tonnes of Florida phosphate reserves and four phosphate plants that made about 72 percent of North America’s concentrated phosphates in 2025. Its three Saskatchewan potash mines have about an eighth of the world’s potash capacity, and one of them, Belle Plaine, made a record 3 million tonnes in 2025. Ore cut at K3 travels on an enclosed belt to the K1 mill, built for the frozen shaft of 1962.
The program runs 1 hour 26 minutes (1:26:59). The full research report, its companion slide deck, the Excel model and our transcripts of Mosaic’s earnings calls are on the Latticework Substack under the title Mosaic: Cash from Potash Now, a Recovery in Phosphates Later. The companion slide deck is free; the report, the model and the transcripts are available to members of Latticework. Part Two, the deep dive for investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework: Mosaic, Part Two: The Deep Dive. For the industry behind this story, read our Industry Primer on Fertilizers and listen to its two episodes.
This audio program is published in Switzerland as Latticework by MOI Global. It carries no valuation and is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation. Neither MOI Global nor John Mihaljevic holds Mosaic shares. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice. Full disclosures are free at https://www.latticework.com/p/disclosures.
Transcript
The transcript is available for download to members only.
