Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina SA (LOMA) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Loma Negra Fourth Quarter 2021 Conference Call and Webcast.

(Operator Instructions)

Also, Mr. Sergio Faifman will be responding in Spanish immediately following an English translation.

(Operator Instructions)

Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Diego Jalon, Head of IR. Please go ahead, Diego.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Loma Negra's earnings conference call. By now, everyone should have access to our earnings press release and the presentation for today's call, both of which were distributed yesterday before market opens. Joining me on the call this morning will be Sergio Faifman, our CEO and Vice President of the Board of Directors; and our CFO, Marcos Gradin. Both of them will be available for the Q&A session.

Before I turn the call over to Sergio, I would like to make the following safe harbor statements. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. This conference call will also include discussion on non-GAAP financial measures. The full reconciliation to the corresponding financial measures is included in the earnings press release.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Sergio.

Thank you, Diego. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin my presentation with a discussion of the highlights of the quarter, and then Marcos will take you through our market review and financial results. After that, I will provide some final remarks, and then we will open the call to questions.

Starting with Slide 3. We are satisfied to share another solid quarter, closing a year. We saw not only a bounce in demand from last year drop, but a year of robust activity in the construction sector, reaching figures slightly below cement industry all-time height in challenging macroeconomic environment.

In this context, our adjustment EBITDA for the quarter reached $63 million compared with $58 million in fourth quarter '20. When mentioned in pesos, it shows a decline of 10% year-on-year. When looking to our annual figures, we reached $215 million for the fiscal year 2021 from $179 million in 2020, achieving a new record for our operations in Argentina. We are committed to continue delivering strong results and maintain a world-class EBITDA margin on the back of our competitive leadership and higher efficiency production standard. In this sense, the U.S. dollar EBITDA per ton reached $38 in the fourth quarter, 3% above 2020's fourth quarter.

Finally, we are proud to share that this past quarter we inaugurated the second line of L´Amalí plant. Its completion represents a significant milestone for our company that will support our strategy and will allow us to continue increasing production, efficiency and profitability.

I will now hand-off the call to Marcos Gradin, who will walk you through our market review and financial results. Please, Marcos, go ahead.

Thank you, Sergio. Good day, everyone. As you can see on Slide 4, after the deep drop of GDP in 2020 due to the pandemic restrictions, we saw a sharp recovery starting in the second quarter that led growth estimate for 2021 to approximately 9.7%. On the back of this economic rebound, construction activity measured by the ISAC increased sharply to 30.8% for fiscal year 2021, also showing a solid performance in recent months, but 32% of more moderate growth rate.

Regarding Cement, national industry sales, particularly in the second quarter of the year, show a solid demand pushing 2021 accumulative figures, almost at record highs, even though the initial boost of the recovery came from residential demand and it made back cement take a prominent stake of the total dispatches. Bulk has steadily recovered. Breaking down the consumption by dispatch mode, we observed figures in line with historical average.

The first two months of this year, our ratio in the cement demand continues in its upward trend. For the year, we remain culturally optimistic as economic growth in Argentina is overshadowed by short-term macroeconomic challenges, and in some time will surely impact fitter scenarios.

Turning to Slide 5 for a review of our top line performance by segment. Top line was down 3.8% in the fourth quarter, mainly due to a decrease in Cement revenues, partially offset by Railroad and Aggregates. Cement -- majorly Cement top line segment was down 4.8%, with volume expanding 3.5% year-on-year with a softer pricing dynamic. Concrete revenues remained almost flat for the quarter. Volumes dropped due to an extraordinary infrastructure work in fourth quarter '20, compensated by a good price performance. Aggregates show sharp revenue recovery of 51.9%. Volume expanded 14% on the back of roadworks demand, coupled with a recovery in pricing. Finally, Railroad revenues increased 8.1% during the quarter versus the same quarter of last year. Although volumes were down 3%, prices and better product mix more than compensated that effect. For the whole year, consolidated revenues were up 17.3% to ARS 73.7 billion from ARS 62.8 billion in 2020. Volumes expanded sharply across all segments.

Moving on to Slide 7. Consolidated gross profit for the quarter declined 7.9% year-over-year, with margin contracted by 152 basis points to 34.6%, mainly impacted by a lower top line performance of our core segment. Cement gross margin contraction was slightly offset by the better performance of Concrete and Aggregates that show an improvement from last year heavily impacted results. SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenues increased by 202 basis points to 9.9%, from 7.9%, mainly due to a recognition of our allowance for doubtful receivables in the Railroad segment and higher marketing expenses. Without considering the extraordinary effect of the Railroad segment, SG&A as a percentage of revenues would have been 8.9%. During the year, gross profit improved sharply by 22.5%, our margin expanded 134 basis points.

Please turn to Slide 8. Our adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter stood at $63 million, up 9.1% from $58 million in the same quarter a year ago, boosted by our top line. In pesos, EBITDA was down 10% in the quarter, reaching ARS 6.4 billion, with consolidated EBITDA margin of 33.3%, contracted by 231 basis points year-on-year. Cement segment adjusted EBITDA margin reached 37.4%, margin contracted by 306 basis points, mainly due to a softer pricing dynamic, partially offset by lower production costs and an increase in sales volume. When compared to previous quarter, margin expanded 793 basis points.

On a per ton basis, EBITDA reached a top-notch level of $38, increasing 3.3% from fourth quarter of 2020. Concrete adjusted EBITDA increased ARS 345 million compared to fourth quarter of '20, mainly explained by the positive bright performance with margin in positive grounds at 6% from last year negative figures. Aggregates adjusted EBITDA improved from negative ARS 22 million in fourth quarter to negative ARS 4 million in first quarter 2021, showing a negative margin of 1.2%, favored by a better pricing mix and higher sales volume. Finally, Railroad adjusted EBITDA decreased ARS 183 million to negative ARS 201 million for the quarter, with a negative margin of 12.9%, mainly due to the impact produced by recognition of an allowance for the output receivables of ARS 187 million. For the full year 2021, adjusted EBITDA showed an increase of 15.4% from 2020, with margin reaching 31.4%. When measured in U.S. dollars, our EBITDA reached an outstanding figure of $215 million, setting a record high for the operations in Argentina.

Moving on to the bottom line on Slide 10. Our profit from continuing operations stood at ARS 2.8 billion, decreasing 37% year-on-year, mainly due to a lower operational result and the impact of higher total financial costs. Total financial costs stood at ARS 0.1 billion in fourth quarter '21 compared to a net gain of ARS 0.9 billion last year as a result of a lower gain exchange rate difference due to a lower debt in U.S. dollars and a lower gain on the net monetary position. Additionally, our net financial expense increased by ARS 0.2 billion to ARS 0.4 billion compared to same quarter last year, driven by lower FX depreciation effect compared with the evolution of the inflation rate.

Net profit attributable to the owners of the company reached ARS 2.9 billion, contributing to a net profit of ARS 6.6 billion for full year 2021. Please note that the full year comparison is expected by the extraordinary result of the divestment in Paraguay in fiscal year 2020 and for an increase in income tax rate that impacted in 2021.

Moving on to the balance sheet. As you can see on Slide 11, we ended the quarter with a cash position of ARS 5.3 billion and total debt of ARS 2.5 billion. Consequently, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at negative 0.12x compared to 0.16x at the end of 2020. During the quarter, we continued reducing our debt in $16 million standing at $24 million, most of which is denominated in U.S. dollars. Additionally, we continue with our share repurchase programs. We acquired share for a total amount of ARS 0.7 billion in the quarter and ARS 2.4 billion for the whole year.

Our operation cash generation stood at ARS 5.2 billion, reflecting a lower profitability, partially compensated by a positive working capital effect. Regarding capital expenditure, we spent ARS 2.2 billion, 27% of which were dedicated to L´Amalí expansion project, almost completing the capital requirements of the expansion.

Now for our final remarks, I would like to hand the call back to Sergio.

Thank you, Marcos. Now to finalize the presentation, I please ask you to turn to Slide 13. During the second half of 2021, cement demand increased in pace almost reaching record heights. Looking ahead, we expect growth to continue with the pace following the trend of recent months, always such as the outcome of recent geopolitical turbulence and local political and macroeconomic challenging scenarios. In this context, we remain focused on delivering strong results.

As I mentioned before, past December, we had the satisfaction of inaugurating the second line of L´Amalí plant, transforming it in one of the biggest cement plants in South America. The incorporation of the new line also implies an update of the plant from the technological point of view and a strong increase in its productivity, supported by the sustainability policies that comply with restricted international standards in terms of environmental (inaudible) .

This is the most important strategic investment that Loma Negra has made in the last 20 years, and we are prudent to have successfully complete the project despite the complex moments we have gone through in recent times. Additionally, we are gratified to release to our first sustainability report that will allow us to share with our stakeholders all the hard work that Loma Negra has been doing in the environment, social and corporate governance areas. We are convinced that these are the fundamental pillars on which the growth of the company must be sustained.

I would like to conclude by combining our satisfaction with the results achieved in 2021. And thank you, all our people and stakeholders, for their commitment to Loma's operational excellence without whom this result would have been impossible to achieve.

We are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Also please note that Mr. Sergio Faifman will be responding in Spanish immediately following an English translation.

Our first question comes from Alberto Valdes (sic) [Valerio] with UBS.

Congrats Sergio and Marcos and Diego for the results in 2021. My question is looking ahead a little bit. About energy costs, you have seen the few energy spikes in the disputes between Russia and Ukraine. And we know that in Argentina, you had contracted with the government for the supply of natural gas. And my question is looking ahead, two things.

The first one is about the gas contract, if you see any potential change between you and the government? And the second one, also about the FX with the IMS agreements -- new agreement, if you may see a depreciation of Argentinian pesos going close to the blue dollar in Argentina for seasonable future?

[Interpreted]

Alberto, we'll start with the first question. Our contracts today of natural gas are with companies and not with the national government. In general, these contracts are for one year. We have already had an increase in the natural cost -- the cost of natural gas after the pandemic. Current prices are slightly above what you have seen in this quarter. Right now, we are negotiating several contracts, which start from next October, and they are very -- in very similar terms of prices from what we are seeing today. In conclusion, we are not seeing an increase or -- an increase in what we are paying today in the energy side.

In respect of the pesos and the effects, we expect the FX movement following what's happening with inflation for the year. We are not expecting a hike in -- a sudden hike in the FX pesos.

And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Diego Jalon for closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate your interest in our company. We remind you that our new sustainability report is at your disposal in our website, and we look forward to meeting you again in our next call. In the meantime, we remain available for any questions that you may have. Thank you, and have a good day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]