Grupo Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:GMEXICOB

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

Good afternoon, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Grupo México's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. With us this afternoon are all of Grupo México's top executives who will discuss the second quarter 2022 financial performance of the company, giving you a summary of the latest news and address any questions you may have at the end of the call.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's results and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Grupo México undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

All results are expressed in full U.S. GAAP. The presentation may be followed through our webcast. [Operator Instructions] A copy of the slides that the company will be reviewing today is available on the website at grupomexico.com. [Operator Instructions]

Now we will begin with Ms. Marlene Finny.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you very much, Carolyn, for the introduction. And thank you, everybody. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for Grupo México's Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With me today are the top executives from our 3 divisions. During our call, as Carolyn mentioned before, we will be following a presentation that can be downloaded from our website or followed by accessing the webcast.

On Slide #3 of the presentation, you'll find the contents for today's call. As we've been doing for several quarters now, I will start with Grupo México's main highlights by going through our main ESG achievements, our scorecard and our financial highlights. Then Mr. Leonardo Contreras will provide detailed information regarding our Mining Division, commenting on the economic environment, its financial highlights and project update.

He will then be followed by Mr. Isaac Franklin, who will go through the Transportation Division's financial and operational highlights. Finally, Mr. Francisco Zinser will comment on the financial highlights and relevant events that occurred during the quarter in our Infrastructure Division. At the end, the line will be open to questions and answers.

Previously, today, we have -- earlier today, we had our Southern Copper and GMXT conference calls as well. So many questions were addressed there. But if you have any further questions, we will open the line as well for those divisions here.

So now I will start with our main ESG highlights in the Slide #5. We are very happy to announce that both Grupo México and Grupo México Transportes have joined the S&P Global Sustainability Index in Mexico. Along this line Southern Copper Corporation was also included in the ESG-related index, the S&P in Peru General ESG Index. Both indexes are integrated by the company with the best ESG performance.

The company has had an increase of 24% in their corporate sustainability assessment since 2018 from 49 to 61 out of 100 points, enabling us to be part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in Latin America integrated market regions. Since 2017 and the 2022 sustainability Yearbook. So there are positive news.

In addition to that, several of our units have received ISO -- ISO certification from our terminal in Guaymas where underground mining Charcas, the first of our underground mines to receive such certification. Our Infrastructure division with the certification in the Engineering business now has 60% of its business lines certified as well.

Last but not least, our metallurgical complex in Sonora was recognized as 1 of the 10 best places to work for women.

Moving forward to Slide #6, where you can find our scorecard, which portrays our progress during the year. As you can see, sales totaled almost $7 billion during the first half of the year. This is a 5% decline when compared to the same period of last year. This was mainly due to the production stoppage in Cuajone, lower ore grades and a mark-to-market adjustment to open sales.

These nonrecurring events, it is important to have in mind that these were nonrecurring events, along with the inflationary cost increase affected our results. Our EBITDA for the first half of 2022 totaled $3.6 billion. This is a 20% decrease versus the same period of 2021, ending the period with a 52% EBITDA margin. Despite -- the good news is despite the increase in our cash cost, we ended the first half of 2022 in 105 per pound of copper produced. We are still a copper producer with the lowest cash cost in the industry.

Our board approved, and I think we will see this in other slide as well. But last Friday, our board approved a dividend of MXN 1 per share. which translates into an approximate above 5% annualized dividend yield.

Moving to Slide #7. There you have the financial highlights for the second quarter and year-to-date of 2021 and 2022. This is for your -- you have them in hand in case you need them.

So now we can move to Slide #8. As you can see, Grupo México continues to have a solid balance sheet with low leverage and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.4x. Our debt is mainly issued in U.S. dollars. So that represents 80% of our total debt, while the rest is in Mexican pesos.

On this slide, you can also see the dividends paid from 2021 to 2022, and we respect this annual and quarterly implied dividend yield.

As for our debt maturity in next slide, Slide #9. We continue to have a comfortable maturity schedule with no payments of over $1 billion until 2035. Our cash balance ended the quarter at $5.7 billion.

Now I will let Mr. Leonardo Contreras comment on the Mining division's performance.

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo de Tejada, executive]

Thank you, Marlene. Thank you for joining us. I'll start with a couple of quick remarks on the current market. 2022, the LME copper price decreased 2% from an average $4.40 per pound in the second quarter of 2021 to $4.32. However, [indiscernible] we had a significant drop in fuel prices down to its current level between $3.30 to $3.50 per pound.

Concerns [indiscernible] and consequently affecting copper prices. These fears are based upon the following factors: considering interest rates by the Fed, the ECB and other relevant central banks, and second, the slowdown of the Chinese economy due to COVID-19 restrictions and the construction activities 31% year-over-year reduction. However, you should note that the most relevant market intelligent houses for the copper market are expecting a market imbalance or with a small deficit for 2022 of about 200,000 tons.

Assuming growth in demand between 1% and 2.5% in 2022, particularly in terms of capital consumptions from the United States. There is uncertainty regarding future production growth in Chile and Peru, which together represent about 40% of the total supply. Chile registered a production drop of 7% during the first quarter of 2022, while 13% of Peru's production is currently at risk in Las Ventas.

The major warehouses have not reported a relevant increase in copper inventories, which as of June 30 were at 8 days of consumption are relatively low level. We believe the economic slowdowns in the U.S., China and Europe have temporarily weakened the demand for copper and are driving reductions in current prices.

It is important to emphasize that copper plays a leading role in the global ship to clean energy, which correlates positively with our research in that the underlying demand for copper will be strong in the long term. In this scenario, we believe the current cycle of low prices should be short lived.

Now let's move forward to the Mining division's operating and financial highlights on Slide 12, please. Division total sales for the first 6 months '22 totaled $5.6 billion, a 7.8% reduction when compared to the same period of 2021. This was mainly due to nonrecurring events such as the stoppage in production in Cuajone where our operation was ilegally blocked by individuals, not related to the company, provoking a decrease in production equivalent to $217 million.

Lower average, which had an impact of $240 million and the mark-to-market adjustment to open sales equivalent to $104 million. These unfortunate events on the higher global inflationary costs negatively impacted our EBITDA and EBITDA margin, which closed the first 6 months of the year and $2.9 billion and 52.4% EBITDA margin, respectively.

Our year-to-date production totaled 481,216 tons of copper, an 11.1% decrease versus the same period of last year, impacted by the temporary stoppage during April and March at Cuajone and the already mentioned lower ore grades. Even though our net cash costs saw an increase of 28% when compared to the same period of 2021, ending at $1.05. We continue to be the cost leader in the industry worldwide. The Mining division's CapEx totaled $476 million during the first 6 months of 2021.

Now as we move forward to Slides 13 and 14, I would like to share our project updates and highlights. Let me talk about our short-term points. Pilares, which is expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of 2022. We have already deployed 51% of investments and the project has obtained all required permits and licenses.

As per our Buenavista Zinc project, the engineering study has been completed. The procurement has a 99% progress, and the construction site works are in progress with all necessary products. As for El Pilar, the results on the experimental leaching pads confirmed suitable levels of copper recovery. The basic engineering has already been completed, and we continue developing site environmental activities on site.

Now continuing with our long-term projects, I would like to talk about Los Chancas, Michiquillay and El Arco. In our Los Chancas project, we continue to engage in social and environmental improvements for local communities during the quarter and work in the environmental impact as set for our 130,000 tonnes per annum open pit mine projects. Last year, we marked a positive year for the Michiquillay project, we were able to sign a social agreement with the Michiquillay and the Cajamarca communities, providing an opportunity to improve the resident's life quality to strong social programs and also supported by a solid framework at the project level.

All of these, along with the Peruvian Ministry of Energy's approval of the semi-detailed environmental impact study back in October of 2021 are important steps that will allow the company to initiate an in-depth exploration program during the second quarter of 2022.

When operational, Michiquillay will become 1 of Peru's largest copper mine. Now as for El Arco, our project located in Baja California, Mexico, we have completed the baseline study and are reviewing the basic engineering analysis to request the environmental impact there.

If we move on to Slide 15, you can see more detail on our robust pipeline of coming projects and their impact to production as we continue our journey to reach 2 million tons of copper per year. That will be all from our mining division's highlights. If you have to have any follow-up questions, we will be pleased to address them during the Q&A session.

Now I will let Isaac comment on our Transportation division.

[Isaac Franklin Unkind;General Director of Administration, executive]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the Transportation Division's financial highlights for the quarter and the year as shown in Slide 17. First, I'm pleased to announce that we achieved a 6.3% sales increase year-to-date, driven by a positive performance in the majority of our segments totaling $1.3 billion. Along these lines, our EBITDA saw an improvement of 6.4% versus the first 6 months of 2021, ending the period in $592 million and a 45% EBITDA margin, in line with the EBITDA margin seen last year.

The division's net income totaled $196 million year-to-date, 7.5% higher than the same period of 2021. Our transported volumes saw a decrease due to the impact in automotive, agricultural and energy segments, resulting in a 6.9% reduction in net ton kilometer and 1% decline in cargoes. The total number of cars hauled during the second quarter of 2022 totaled 475,028 cars and 940,364 cars year-to-date.

As we move forward to Slide 18, you can see our remaining overall highlights. Volumes are higher in the majority of our business units. This quarter's revenues increased 4.1%, having a record for the quarter and year-to-date revenues for the division. Our EBITDA for the quarter increased 1%, totaling MXN $5,930 million, committed to generate value to our shareholders, our Board approved a $0.50 per share dividend in line with the last quarter period.

Continuing with the main variation of our revenue for the quarter on Slide 19. As mentioned before, almost all of our segments saw revenue growth during this quarter with the automotive, agricultural, energy segment being the only levers in revenue generation. The automotive segment was affected by the global Microchip shortage still impacting manufacturers worldwide and lack of empty railcars due to congestion, translating into a 6% decrease.

The Agricultural segment saw a 2% decrease, mainly affected by a supply chain congestion, which led to a decrease in imports of shuttle trains of wheat and corn. The Energy segment was affected by a reduction in refined product imports partially offset by an increase in fuel oil traffics translating into a slight reduction of 1%.

In relative terms, this quarter's top performance was the industrial segment, which saw an increase of 18% due to market share gains after COVID. The other segment, which saw double-digit revenue growth, where metals with a similar increase of 18%, where the revenue increase was due to an increased share of Mexican imports and volume of raw materials and finished products.

Minerals, with a 13% increase, driven by reactivated iron ore traffic and operating efficiencies, along with the strong construction activity in Florida increasing aggregate freight. Chemicals also increased in double digits, 11% due to increased Mexican imports of plastic resins and basic chemicals. With medium growth and showing single-digit increases we have intermodal segment, increasing 7% due to increased volume in Mexico and the cement segment with a high percent increase propelled by a recovery of the U.S. construction industry.

Moving forward to our CapEx for 2022. So on Slide 20, we expect to invest around $547 million, were $291 million will be invested in maintenance projects, such as new rails and ties, locomotive overhaul, $160 million will be invested in growth projects such as our intermodal terminal increased loading and unloading capacity around the port to capture volume increase in our Monterrey and Celaya Bypass, while $140 million will be invested in our efficiency programs, including our LNG locomotive conversion plan and the Coatzacoalcos, Medias Aguas Double Track.

This concludes the general overview of the Transportation division. I will now let Francisco comment on infrastructure division.

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

Thank you very much, Isaac, and good afternoon to everyone. I will continue today's call by going through the financial highlights of the Infrastructure division, which are shown in Slide #23. The division's solid performance has allowed us to generate value and growth through our different business units during the first half of the year. Our year-to-date revenues totaled $315 million, a strong 16% increase when compared to the same period of last year. Along these lines, our EBITDA amounted $124 million, 7.6% higher when compared with the same period of 2021.

Our cumulative EBITDA margin settled at 40%, while our net income totaled $25 million, an outstanding 39% increase versus 2021, which translates into a $7 million increase. These great results were mainly driven by the continued operation of our oil rigs, the increase of capacity and tariffs in our Toll roads and the greater number of engineering projects.

Before finishing my intervention, I will briefly talk about some of the most relevant events of the division. I would like to highlight that Perforadora Mexico have uninterrupted operations in all of its rigs as we continue to drive our growth strategy, embracing efficiency as a core element of the way in which we operate in order to maintain profitability.

The operation during the first half of 2022 had an efficiency of almost 100% and reached an EBITDA of $34.6 million, a 9.7% increase versus the first half of 2021. To conclude, I would like to emphasize the continued growth in daily capacity of over 15% versus 2021 in our Toll roads which propelled the business unit's cumulative revenue and EBITDA to $23.3 million and $15.6 million, respectively, which translates in an 18.6% increase in sales and a 23.4% increase in EBITDA when compared to the same period of last year.

This ends the Infrastructure division highlights. Now I will let Marlene proceed with her closing remarks.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you, Francisco. I'll close by thanking you everybody here. Leonardo, Isaac for your comments, Francisco as well and everybody for joining us today. I hope today's presentation gives you a better understanding of what's happening in our division.

Now we will open the line for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Regina Carrillo with GBM.

[Regina Carrillo Villasana, analyst]

I have 2. The first 1 would be, well, we have been reading in the news that Grupo México is bidding for the City Panamax deal, can you give us any color on that? And the second is, could you please comment on the decrease in the dividend. If you are expecting better results ahead? Should we expect higher dividends as well for the second half of the year?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you for your questions, Regina. Regarding your first question, all I can say is that we have been carefully following this process, the process which involves a fundamental institution for the monitoring history of Mexico, so panamax. And as you know, in Grupo México, we constantly look at new opportunities that could add value to our shareholders, our country and our company. But as we have always done in the past, we maintain a very prudent and cautious approach to inorganic growth given our strong pipeline of projects in our 3 divisions.

So in that sense, and answering also your second question, dividends, yes, they were lower this quarter when compared to past quarters, but we remain with a high dividend yield of above 5%, 1 of the highest in Mexico and is in line with roughly 80% of our net income as in past quarters.

Having said that, I would like to highlight that we maintain a strong commitment towards organic growth within the company, our projects and our focus and priority in returning value to our shareholders and the communities in which we operate. Nevertheless, we will continue to constantly analyze accretive M&A opportunity to create value in our industries or other industries that could make sense depending on prices, numbers and everything that we would have to look at.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Question I have is mostly for Leonardo and Francisco. The first 1 is if you could -- maybe Leonardo give us an update on the Asarco outlook of production outlook and sales for this year as well as cash costs before and after by products. And any other specific projects or updates that you have for us perhaps on CapEx or any other projects that may be of interest?

And then Francisco, could you please give us an update on the megawatt per hour produced in the quarter by the energy business as well as if you have them, maybe share the revenues and EBITDA of the fuel terminals as a new segment?

[Leonardo Contreras Lerdo de Tejada, executive]

Good afternoon, Carlos. I will probably take on the first question. First of all, the guidance for the Asarco production should be around 120,000 metric tons. We're expecting a cash cost before byproducts of 287 and after byproducts 273. And then you usually ask what was the cash cost for this quarter. It was also 291 and before byproducts and after byproducts 281.

As projects in Asarco for now, this next quarter, we should begin the ramp-up of our cadent concentrator in terms of slack processing. So we can hopefully have some good news by next quarter. As far Asarco, I think that's most of what we can share with you at the moment.

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

And regarding your second question, the accumulated amount of megawatt hours produced in -- for the power plant is 1,425,086 that's been the complete period of January to June of this year, which is a 10% decrease versus last year, and this is mostly because we have a major outage planned and programmed outage in the power plant number one, because it's already 8 years old, and it's when it has to be done.

And then regarding your second question about terminals, right now, as we have informed before, we are in standby with our terminal projects because of some of the changes in regulation that have been happening. And so we really don't have an outlook for now.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Thank you for that, Leonardo and Francisco. Just -- so the terminals -- the fuel terminals division is not generating revenue at the moment on EBITDA?

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

Correct.

[Carlos de Alba, analyst]

Okay.

[Operator]

One moment for our next question. Next question is from Lucila Gomes with Compass Group.

[Unknown Analyst]

So about the previous situation in volume. I know that has been resolved, but my question is, are volumes back in your normal levels? And second question would be after the Peruvian government resolution, is there maybe a risk that maybe this could happen again and impact operations?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Sorry, your second question was regarding the government in Peru, we couldn't get it very well. Could you repeat that part?

[Unknown Analyst]

My second question is, I know that there's been a resolution, but is there maybe a risk this could happen again?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Raul, do you want to take that question?

[Raul Jacob, executive]

Yes. Are you referring to the Cuajone, Lucila no? Hello? Do you copy me?

[Unknown Analyst]

It was first to Cuajone. But I think...

[Raul Jacob, executive]

If there is -- we have been in these talks with the community, and they have moved on. And we -- as we understand, most of the community members are in favor of keep talking and getting to reaching an agreement. Now that's our current expectation, and the government is helping us to fulfill this goal.

[Unknown Analyst]

Perfect. Clear.

[Operator]

We have a question from Alfonso Salazar with Scotiabank.

[Alfonso Salazar, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first 1 is regarding the Mayan railway. And there's some press articles saying that Grupo México is no longer participating in the project. Just want to confirm if that is right. And if you can elaborate on that and what are the reasons behind the -- if you are no longer part of the project?

The second question is related to the outlook of the copper -- the copper market in the long term. If you have a review what your expectations for the long-term copper outlook, there are many analysts and investors, and I include myself that having bullish copper for a very long time, simply because we are expecting supply to be disrupted and a strong demand.

Now it seems that demand is a bigger concern for investors especially for what is happening in China and in the developed markets. So just wondering how are you seeing this? And if you see any risk of changes to the copper market more in the long term, so not necessarily the fact that we could see a weak market in the coming months, but something more structural regarding the demand side, not the supply but the demand side, if you can make any comment on that, I would appreciate that.

[Francisco Gonzalez, executive]

So regarding your first question about the mayan train, as you know, there have been some injunctions and suspension of the project that goes -- that we were constructing at both at Campeche and Quintana Roo. Those suspensions started back in April and they are still nowadays valid. Therefore, there was a mutual agreement with the government. They declared the project to be of National Security and got handed over to Sevilla and Grupo México is no longer part of the project. This was again a mutual agreement between the parties and mostly because of the injunctions that nowadays have the project stopped, and that's basically the reason.

[Fernando Guerra, executive]

Francois, I will take on the copper market question. I mean as we mentioned earlier ones, 3 things happening throughout the world. One is the COVID policy in China and how they will matter. I do think that -- well we do think that it's still uncertain. Second, the European energy crisis at the moment. And as well, we're also following the potential growth or recession in the U.S. And also we do think that those 3 factors will have an effect in the short term.

We don't know if it's 6, 12, 18 months. But regardless of that, we do see still and we're very bullish as you are in terms of the offer and the demand for copper. We do see a deficit in the upcoming years. The fundamentals are very solid. And we see that there's pretty much uncertainty and volatility at the moment, but we think that this is just a short term and it will eventually go away.

[Alfonso Salazar, analyst]

Thank you for the confirmation about the mayan railway and for your outlook for copper. Just 1 final suggestion, thank you for providing more details on what's going on in Asarco. We saw what is going on in Mission and Silver Bell, please keep that comment. It's very useful for us as analysts to understand better this asset? What's going on in Asarco. So it's just an invitation to be more [indiscernible] really shapes Asarco. .

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Thank you. We will and we take your feedback into consideration. So thank you, Alfonso. We'll try to continue to give you more and more information and more disclosure as you need. And if not, we are always available for any questions you might have. But thank you for your feedback.

[Operator]

We have a question from Isabella Vasconcelos with Bradesco.

[Isabella Vasconcelos, analyst]

I have a quick question here on the transportation division and more specifically on how you're seeing the evolution of volumes recently across sectors? And if you maintain the guidance of volume growth this year, if I'm not mistaken it's between the range of 5% to 7%? Or if we could expect a change in that estimate?

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Isabella, sorry your -- we didn't get your question very well. Regarding volumes in the Mining Division, the Transportation division or?

[Isabella Vasconcelos, analyst]

In the Transportation division.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Okay. Sure. Isaac, do you want to take that question?

[Isaac Franklin Unkind;General Director of Administration, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Isabella. Well, regarding there were some external factors that affected our volumes during the second quarter and mainly was a change in our operating system, but it's really been a short interruption in or more than interruption. It was -- it really affected our interchange volumes with some of our U.S. partners and it lasted 10 days, 10 days the system, it was 50 years old. So we were in the need to change it.

On the other side, part of the volumes were hurt mainly in agricultural because of the congestion on the U.S. side so that prevents us from moving more subtle trains of wheat and corn and in the automotive industry. So the thing is, first, there was a shortage of microchips. So the plants are not producing as many cars. And the second 1 is because of the same congestion on the U.S. side, the empty cars that need to be loaded here in Mexico are not coming as fast as it's needed. So that affected our volumes.

We also -- what we expect is for the second half of the year to be resolved and we're optimistic on the volumes for the second half of the year.

[Operator]

We have a Sofia Martin with the GBM.

[Unknown Analyst]

My question has already been answered.

[Operator]

You are breaking up a little bit, please.

[Unknown Analyst]

My question was already answered.

[Operator]

And sir, I'm not showing any further questions. You can go ahead with your final remarks.

[Marlene de la Torre, executive]

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us. We'll keep in touch and hope to talk with you next quarter or before that. And thank you, Francisco, Isaac, Leonardo and everybody here as well for being in the call.

[Operator]

And with that, ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for joining. This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.