Kimberly-Clark de Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:KIMBERA

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Operator]

Everyone, we now have our speakers in conference. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the conference over to Pablo Gonzalez, CEO. Please go ahead.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for participating on the call. I hope you and your families are all safe and well, and we wish you all the best for 2022. Let me make some brief introductory comments, and then I'll pass it on to Xavier to discuss fourth quarter results and full year results.

After a very good 2020, in which we posted records in both top line and bottom line, as well as very strong margins, we were at the high end of our target range. 2021 proved challenging, particularly the second half of the year. Slow growth of domestic consumption, COVID impacts and sales comparisons of related products, the continued disruptions caused by the pandemic and especially the rapid and unprecedented commodity and raw material cost increases, all weighed on our results.

The cost increases accelerated sequentially throughout the year and our actions to mitigate their impact are underway, but take longer to materialize. Also, in the short term, our volumes and market positions have been affected as is always the case when we implement price increases. That is the crux of the fourth quarter results.

Having said all this, we are confident that such actions will allow us to sequentially improve results in the first half of the year and will position KCM to have a strong second half and a good overall 2022. There's still plenty of volatility, particularly around raw material costs and it is not clear when they may stabilize and eventually come down. But our expectation is that when it happens, it will be gradual, moderate and over a prolonged period of time.

Accordingly, the actions we are taking span across all our operations and areas and over the course of the year, will put us in a much better position to show much improved and stronger results. Challenging? Yes, but also exciting since it's forcing us to find opportunities to further improve how we run the business. KCM has always been very efficient and successful. And we are sure that as we get out of this period, we will be even more so and uniquely positioned to continue to grow and post industry-leading margins.

It's very important to mention that during the year, we maintained and reinforced the various measures, protocols and actions to protect the health of our employees and their families, our #1 priority. We also work closely with communities and suppliers to ensure the community -- the continuity of our operations. We are proud of our success in this regard and in assuring that all our customers and consumers had access to our products as we continue to operate our facilities without any meaningful disruption.

Xavier will now take you through the results and then I'll provide some color on the context and the actions we are implementing.

[Xavier Cortés Lascurain, executive]

Thank you, Pablo. Good morning, everyone. During the quarter, our sales were MXN 11.7 billion, a 1.2% increase versus the fourth quarter of 2020. Volume was down 4%, with price and mix contributing 5.2%. Consumer products decreased 5.2% as we continue to face this low consumer environment and volume comparisons were adversely affected by strong COVID-related sales in 2020. Pricing actions taken in the fourth quarter also impacted volume and market positions in the short term.

Away-from-home product sales increased 60.5% as the economy starts to reopen and were somewhat above the fourth quarter of 2019 pre-pandemic levels. We expect they will continue to show strong sequential improvement. Export sales grew to 52.2% as sales of finished products doubled from last year. Cost of goods sold increased 15.8%. Against last year, every commodity and raw material category compared negatively. Pulp was up approximately 30%, depending on the grade. Imported recycled fiber prices grew close to 60% and domestic recycled fibers as well, average high single-digit increases.

On the personal care side, superabsorbent materials were up more than 50% and resins more than 90%. Finally, energy and natural gases also compared negatively, with the latter growing more than 80%. The FX was slightly lower, averaging 1% or less. Our cost reduction program once again had very good results and yielded approximately MXN 350 million of savings in the quarter. These savings are mainly at the cost of goods sold level and are generated by sourcing materials improvement and process efficiencies.

Gross profit decreased 22.4% and margin was 29.7% for the quarter. SG&A expenses were 2% higher year-over-year and practically flat as a percentage of sales. Operating profit decreased 38.3%, and the operating margin was 14.0%. We generated MXN 2.1 billion of EBITDA, a 32.6% decrease, and EBITDA margin was 17.8%. Cost of financing was MXN 420 million in the fourth quarter compared to MXN 424 million in the same period last year.

During the quarter, we had a MXN 30 million FX gain, which compares to a MXN 3 million loss last year. Net income for the quarter was MXN 790 million, with earnings per share of MXN 0.26. Net income was materially and negatively affected by a one non time cash deferred (sic) [ onetime non-cash deferred ] tax credit cancellation related to 4e.

For the whole year, our sales were MXN 46.9 billion, an all-time record despite the 4e recall impact. EBITDA was MXN 10.3 billion, a healthy overall number despite the strong cost increases and was 22% of sales. While this margin fell below our long-term target, it's still a very solid margin in our industry. Net income was MXN 4.5 billion, represented 10% of sales. Savings from the cost reduction program amounted to MXN 1.4 billion.

As we had anticipated during the year, we ramped up our CapEx, and we invested MXN 2.2 billion. We have an aggressive CapEx program for the next 2 years, where we will invest in excess of $250 million in technology improvements, cost reductions and efficiencies and capacity additions. We maintain a very strong and healthy balance sheet. Our total cash position at the end of the year was MXN 12 billion. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 1.4x, with an EBITDA to net interest coverage of 6x.

Thank you. Back to Pablo.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks, Xavier. So let me give you some color on the context. First, the economic and domestic consumption. After what has proved to be more of a rebound than a full-fledged recovery, Mexico's economy lost momentum and slowed down at the end of 2021. As we get into the New Year, given inflation pressures and the lack of growth accelerators, the Mexican economy is expected to grow moderately. It will need some time to recover its prepandemic levels.

Consumers are particularly stretched as they've had to dig into their savings to make ends meet and are facing strong inflation. On the positive side, record remittances and increases in wages are providing some relief. So overall, we expect domestic consumption to grow, albeit at a slow pace.

Second, the market. We expect an aggressive retail environment as clients try to attract consumers, while cautiously managing their working capital. With respect to competition, they took advantage of the fact that we started to move prices during the fourth quarter and that had an impact on results. We are all facing the same cost pressures, and we would expect their pricing and promotional activities to reflect it.

Third, and most importantly, our actions. As I mentioned during my opening comments, we're looking at all operations and areas of our business and have identified several opportunities. We have put together action plans to act on these opportunities, which include pricing and promotional effectiveness behind our revenue growth management efforts. But also actions to strengthen our team and execution capabilities, accelerate the innovation pipeline, leverage our multi-brand and multichannel strategy, improve efficiencies and productivities at our mills as well as to strengthen our cost reduction program and squeeze working capital to generate more cash.

Some examples are spending behind brands and in the different channels is being optimized through our RGM models with very good results. We have restructured and strengthened our sales and go-to-market team. We have improved almost all of our product lineup in bathroom tissue, and we'll do the same in most categories during the year. We are adding new equipment to offer better products at a lower cost. We expect to achieve record savings in our cost reduction program and we are streamlining processes, products and operations to reduce complexities, add more value and act with greater speed.

To this end, as a concrete example, we will be integrating 4e to achieve synergies and increase growth opportunities, while implementing strict control and quality measures. Overall, we're implementing a comprehensive set of actions to greatly improve our speed to market, product offering to consumers, business plans with retailers and every facet of our business.

As mentioned at the start of the call, we are confident that these actions will allow us to improve results sequentially during the first half of the year and put KCM in a position to have a strong second half in 2022. Finally, consistent with our long track record of shareholder-friendly policies, at our February Board Meeting and Shareholders Meeting, we will be proposing a dividend payment at a highest possible level.

That concludes our opening remarks. Let me turn it over for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question will come from Benjamin Theurer with Barclays.

[Benjamin Theurer, analyst]

Yes. Xavier, Pablo, well, Happy New Year, first of all. So clearly, that was, I guess, not the quarter you were hoping for. Now my question really is, could you elaborate a little bit on the initiatives. You touched on a few of them. But in order to get to the sequential improvement, is it going to be a combination of continuously focusing on price increases, while at the same time, hoping for some sequential easening on the cost pressure? Or do you still see on the sequential pace that cost is actually getting worse, but your pricing initiatives are going to help you offset that? Just to understand a little bit that sequential commentary. That would be my first question.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure, Ben. Thanks for participating in the call and likewise, all the best for 2022. Look, the -- as mentioned, there's still a lot of volatility when it comes to the cost scenario. Our expectations right now is that some of the raw materials will increase sequentially first quarter versus fourth quarter last year, where we're seeing a little bit of a relief is on the resin side. But even in that case, all raw materials will compare negatively versus last year in the first quarter and with some of them with a high percentage increases.

So our actions, one, of course, has to do with greater price realization. And as we mentioned at our prior call in October, we are in the process of implementing a price increase. Part of it is already in the market, but it will not be fully reflected until the end of the quarter. So that will certainly help, and we will continue to look for additional opportunities on price realization.

And in addition to that, as I mentioned, we're looking at every facet of the business to see where we can streamline, become more efficient, more productive and reduce costs. And we have some very interesting cost reduction programs coming our way. Of course, they don't happen immediately, but they will start to happen. They will reflect -- some of it will be reflected in the first quarter and certainly by the second quarter of this year.

So overall, cost will continue to be a pressure, but our pricing efforts together with everything that we're doing internally to become more efficient and reduce costs should allow us to show some sequential improvement, and that should be more robust by the second quarter of this year, and we expect that to put us in a very good position for a strong second half of the year. I hope that, that explanation helps.

[Benjamin Theurer, analyst]

Okay. Yes, that was very clear. And then just on the competitive landscape, I mean, clearly, you lost essentially in the last quarter through volume what you were gaining on top line through price mix. I mean you were up some 5% and then you lost some 4% volume. From the past, and I remember, we've seen this years ago in similar ways happening, that there's a quite significant elasticity on the demand side if you start getting more aggressive on the pricing side.

Now, what is your expectation for the competitive environment? And then, I mean, they face the same pressure, right? They need the same raw materials. So what is your expectation of them kind of following on the pricing side and with you having done all these pricing initiatives gaining back that market share. Is that coincident as well into the second half, and that's why you're comfortable for the second half? Or do you think there is risk for an additional delay on that market share recovery from what you're losing right now?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Yes. Well, look, what we've -- this is very different from what we've seen in the past. There's certainly some other factors that weighed in the volume loss for the first quarter. But whenever we lead price increases and competitors' lag, we see the pinch on our shares and our volumes in the short term. So again, there are other factors. But when it comes to that, it's really no different than maybe a little bit in the sense that we started to move on pricing and they were very, very aggressive during the fourth quarter.

Our read of that is that they had compromises with the retail channel, and they couldn't get out of them, they move ahead with it and not had a negative impact. But as you mentioned, we're all feeling the same pressures. So we would expect the pricing and promotional activities to reflect that. And we expect that as that happens, our shares will come back to more normal levels. And we have already started to see shares tick back up in certain categories and in certain channels. And again, as -- and if they move forward, that should allow us to get -- to recover our shares more quickly. And hopefully, it will be before the second half of the year, again, but it depends on when they move into the market.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

[Jens Spiess, analyst]

Happy New Year and best wishes for you and the panelist. So on that same line, I just want to make a question on the price increases. How much of the 7%, which was on top of the 4% you had announced earlier last year, have you already implemented? Could it be the case that you end up implementing less than 7% due to the reaction of the competition?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks for the question, Jens. Look, on pricing, let me divide it, because I think it will be helpful for everyone to understand a little bit better.

First, when it comes to consumer products, very important to note that all businesses showed sequential improvements in pricing. But when we take a look at pricing versus last year, there's no doubt we're further along in implementing these price increases in the personal care categories than we are in tissue. But again, as mentioned, we expect the latest round to be fully implemented by the end of the quarter. And we do expect that to be reflected by the end of the quarter.

Again, we need to see what happens in the market and how competitors move. But assuming that given the pressures they do move on pricing, we do expect this to be fully reflected by the end of the quarter. Then there's our professional business, which takes a little longer because a big proportion of sales are tied to contracts. And we're in the process of renegotiating those contracts. So no doubt, in the fourth quarter, professional business was a drag on our margins. But as we're being very successful, fairly successful in those renegotiations. And that should start to fall through some of it this quarter as the rest next quarter.

So again, sequentially, we should also see some improvements in that business. And as we finalize this round of increases and analyze what happens in the market, what our competitors' reactions. And of course, take a look at how raw materials and commodities are behaving, we'll determine what our next step should be.

[Jens Spiess, analyst]

Okay. That's very clear, Pablo. And on that note, could you remind us when you reset your contract for pulp purchases? I think it was early each year, right, if I can remember correct?.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Yes. Yes. They're already reset.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bob Ford with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Bob, your line is open. Please make sure your phone is not on mute.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

Pablo, could you remind us where you are right now with respect to the split of recycled versus new fiber or virgin fiber and the mix between imported versus domestic post-consumer waste. And is the pricing -- or the price increases that you're seeing in terms of that imported recycled fiber or post-consumer waste, is that temporal and due to supply chain bottlenecks? Or is it more structural in nature?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Yes. Bob, thanks for being on the call. Again, roughly recycled versus virgin fibers were 70/30 range. And then when it comes within recycled imported versus national, we're roughly 60% imported, 40% national. Now particularly on the imported side, this is a little bit where we've seen price increases, and we'll continue to see price pressure in the first half -- sorry, in the first quarter versus fourth quarter.

And it really -- it has to do with the situation that the labor shortage that is going on in the U.S. together with the COVID pandemic because a lot of people are not showing up to work, and there's less collection right now than there was fourth quarter or even last year. But we expect that to normalize at some point. It's not structurally that there should be less material collected. It's just that at this particular point in time, again, given those 2 factors, there's less material being collected. And then it's not -- it hasn't been as easy to bring it from the U.S. to Mexico as was in the past. Again, some supply chain disruptions there and also has to do with some labor shortages.

But we believe all of that will work itself out here, hopefully shortly. And that will hopefully take some pressure of recycled materials because as imported goes up and we -- and every all of us turn to the domestic market for our needs in recycled fiber, of course, those pressure -- those prices then get pressured. So as this gets resolved in the U.S., I think, we will see some relief overall for recycled fibers.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

No, that's great. And given the greater sustained and possibly structural demand for things like surface claimers or hand sanitizer, disposable masks and many other things, right, in this kind of new endemic COVID environment, how are you thinking about product enhancements or maybe better leveraging the [ Quatro ] brand in terms of innovation in some of those areas?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Look, what we -- when you take a look at the different categories, it's interesting because there are some that are still being impacted by the pandemic, notwithstanding that it's come in to a different mode, if you will. But we're still not back to, let me call it, normal everyday life. So some personal care categories are still being impacted, diapers, fem care. And that's why we're seeing a slower volume growth in those categories because as people are still staying home at a greater degree than they did prepandemic, they're using less of such products.

But we expect, again, that as we work through this through the pandemic here in the first -- in January, hopefully February, we started to get out of it that we get back to more normal way of living. I think that we will see those categories start to grow again, and that will certainly be helpful to our business.

Second, there will be, of course, some new habits in terms of cleaning and making sure that you have enough products around to protect yourself. And so we continue to see some opportunities there and cleaning wipes and anti-bacterial, or anti-septic, now called gels, face masks, et cetera. So certainly not at the levels that we saw during last year or 2 years ago, particularly 2020 and early 2021, but some of that -- those habits will stay with us. So that will help.

And then when it comes to 4e, and I mentioned this, that's one of our -- that's a great example of how we're looking to streamline and make our operations more efficient. We've taken control of that business, and we will take advantage of the synergies and take advantage, of course, of pushing their products through our network of salespeople and marketing people and be very aggressive about it. So we see very good opportunities to bring that together with our Escudo brand and create a complete or holistic soap business, liquid and bars and leverage that to become more aggressive in the market and continue to grow those businesses.

So quite a few opportunities out there for us as things start to normalize and improve. Hopefully, domestic consumption, as I mentioned, which has been trending down since April and is still lower than pre-pandemic levels. But hopefully, it will continue to grow. Economies are expecting that it will grow between 3% and 4% this year. Hopefully, that's the case and we can take advantage of it. So our actions, our innovations, streamlining together with our price initiatives and recovering share should put us in a much better position throughout the year.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

That's great to hear, Pablo. And just to confirm, [indiscernible] was not distributed through the KCM channels in Mexico.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

No, it wasn't distributed. It had its own operation. We weighed in when it was needed. But again, we wanted that operation to operate apart from Kimberly-Clark de México. Now we will be bringing it inside and expect some interesting synergies both on the cost side, but also on the sales side going forward.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Ulises Argote with JPMorgan.

[Ulises Argote Bolio, analyst]

Just a couple here on my side. So I think the first one, a follow-up on the consumer dynamics. Are you sensing a new trade down across categories from that maybe more challenging consumer scenario that you were speaking about? And how maybe we should think about this going into 2022? And then on the second question, on the CapEx guidance that you provided, thank you very much for that. Are you able to give us any color on what will the main projects be there and where the main investments will go to? Any details here would be really helpful.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure, Ulises. Thanks for being in the call. Let me first say that we are, at this point, not seeing any trade down. We have a couple of categories that might be experiencing some of it. But overall, for our consumer products businesses, we are not seeing trade down so far. Let's see how this continues to evolve because, of course, there are inflation pressures out there. So we'll see how the consumer behaves. But again, if that happens or multi-tier multi-strategy -- multichannel, sorry, strategy should help us to perform well even in that scenario. But very clearly, at this point, we haven't seen a big impact from a trade down.

When it comes to CapEx, as we mentioned, it follows quite a few areas, technology improvements. We are bringing certain technologies that will allow us to bring very important improvements to market in quite a few of our products. Many of those improvements in technology will also allow us to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. And particularly in certain areas and closer to the end of the year, we will be seeing some model, really starting in the third quarter -- second quarter, third quarter and also at the end of the year, we'll be seeing some capacity additions in certain areas that will allow us to restructure and be in a much better position in certain of our businesses.

I will be able to provide quite a bit more color on this by our next call, because one of these very important investments will be starting up in March. But you'll understand that I want to be careful not learning too many people love this before it happens. But again, come the next call, we'll be able to provide quite a bit more color on what this improvements are, but we're very excited. We're very excited to have the opportunity to invest more. And again, we're seeing great opportunities in technology, cost and efficiencies, and we're running behind them very, very quickly so that they could impact our results positively as quickly as possible.

[Ulises Argote Bolio, analyst]

That's perfect. And maybe if I can get one last question in here. Can you give us like any sense on the magnitude of that deferred tax credit cancellation that you kind of discussed. Just trying to make sense a little bit of the numbers here.

[Xavier Cortés Lascurain, executive]

Ulises, yes, it was around MXN 40 million. As we -- as Pablo mentioned, we're taking more control over the 4e operations, and we're running and finally, getting out of the recall process in the U.S., which affected significantly the past 2 year -- the past 2 years' results we decided that the U.S. operation will probably -- we will continue exporting both on a different model, and we decided to take that cancellation of the tax credit.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Rodrigo Alcantara with UBS Bank.

[Rodrigo Alcantara, analyst]

My question is regarding Pablo's initial remarks on the aggressive retail environment. Just wonder if you can elaborate a bit on this. I remember some years ago, we also have some issues with this destocking from retailers. Just curious on how different or how similar this is from the past? My second question would be regarding private label. I don't know if you can comment perhaps you mentioned that competition into the fourth quarter was very aggressive. I don't know if you can break down and perhaps how the competition was? How aggressive was from private labels or commercial brands? Those would be my 2 questions.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks, Rodrigo. I'm glad to comment a little bit more on this. Look, when I mentioned retail environment, the aggressiveness, you've got to take into consideration that for the most part, again, domestic consumption is growing, but it is growing through price, not through volumes. And what that means is, I mean, the pie is not growing as much as, of course, we would all like it to. So whenever that happens, everyone is trying to get a little bigger piece of the pie. And that's not just among our competitors, but certainly within the retail environment.

So among competitors, what we've seen is during the fourth quarter, still very aggressive promotional actions and again, no pricing moves up to that point. We expect or hope that will be coming. And then in the retail environment, they are, of course, all trying to get traffic into the stores, getting the consumers in there. Since again, it's not -- the pie is not growing as much, I'm trying to get that ticket up.

So aggressive, I wouldn't say anything that we hadn't seen before. It's just that there's a big disconnect as we're moving forward with pricing and the rest are not that you see that disconnect. And I would say most of the aggressiveness comes from the branded players, private label, as usual, just maintain certain price and of course, is supported to stronger or lesser degrees depending on the retailer. But really, where we've seen most aggressiveness comes from branded players. Again, nothing we haven't seen before, but maybe a little unexpected given the cost scenario.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bernardo Malpica with Compass Bank.

[Bernardo Malpica Hernández, analyst]

Just in terms of margins, if you could just detail a little bit. Before the fourth quarter, before the price pressures, what was your objective for EBITDA margin for 2022? And how has this changed after seeing the fourth quarter results? And after seeing that there is still a lot of pressure in raw materials and commodity prices. Do you have a specific objective? Do you think that EBITDA margin growth will be slower than expected for 2020?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks, Bernardo. Thanks for your question. Look, given how volatile everything is out there, it's hard to really put a number on the EBITDA margin for 2022. What I can say is that we have -- our target is for a very important increase from where we stand right now and a clear path to getting back to our long-term range of 25% to 27%, which we are very confident, we'll be able to get back there at some point. So what we're working on very aggressively to is to show sequential improvements that by the end of the year are very important versus where we are right now, and that clearly set us in the path to get back to our target range. I hope that helps.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from Mohammed Ahmad with FGP.

[Mohammed Ahmad, analyst]

Just a quick short question. Could you just give us roughly what the consumer volumes hit in Q4?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure, Mohammed. Great to hear from you and all the best. Sure, our volumes in consumer products were basically 9.5% lower versus last year. And we had an improvement of 5% in price roughly. So that's our -- that's how that's -- the growth is comprised of.

And if I can give -- yes, for Q4. And if I can just briefly give you -- I mean, I've talked a little bit about why the volume was down, but let me just -- if I may summarize, Mohammed, so that it's very clear why we saw this contraction -- and again, several factors. One, some lack of growth in some of our categories, given that we're not back to normal everyday life. Some compared negatively because of COVID versus last year, also a slower domestic consumption that's been coming down since April and still lower than pre-pandemic levels. Our pricing initiatives with competitors were not -- have not followed so far.

And finally, which I think we haven't mentioned too much of, but we did see several clients, particularly wholesalers adjust their inventory. Again, there's concern about the rate of growth going forward, and we see retailers being very cautious with their working capital. So those are the different factors that impacted our volumes in the fourth quarter.

[Mohammed Ahmad, analyst]

If I may follow up on the last point, the wholesale inventory adjustment. Isn't it a bit counter to what normally happens, usually ahead of price increases? So I would assume Q4, I think you were in the middle of your raising prices that people would have stocked up ahead of it or it's different this time?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Well, they did stock on some items, not on others. And again, because the pricing is not -- did not happen all at once, but we're working through it, and we expect it to be fully implemented by the end of this quarter. There probably wasn't a great need for them to overstock all at once. So we're working through it with them. That's one. And then you also have to consider that it's -- in our categories, so far, it's only us that have moved, but there's many categories that are moving and retailers are also working through that. And as they see this push for price increases, they see inflation coming up a little bit, but they're concerned with the rate of growth going forward. Yes, we've seen quite a few of them be more cautious than they have in the past, no doubt.

Thank you, Mohammed. And yes, we expect to have a much better year. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

With that, I am showing no further questions in the queue. I do apologize. We do have one final question with Paul from Goldman Sachs.

[Paul Trejo, analyst]

Just can we get a little bit more color on the export business? You mentioned strong sales volumes again and finished product continuing to gain share in the mix. What's the outlook kind of for that business this year, the next couple of years? And should we expect further integration into the Kimber Corp supply chain, as they also look for more efficiencies?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks for the question, Paul. Yes, I mean, the business has been performing very, very well. Our expectation is that it will continue to do so here in the -- for the foreseeable future. Some of the sales that we have in the export business are not -- don't have, let me call it, contracts for the long term or agreements, not contracts, but agreements for the long term. But as we performed well there and have shown that we can deliver good cost very great quality and that we're very reliable. I think more and more KCC is turning over to look at us as a reliable source of products. And that's why we've been able to grow this business.

And again, we have some very good projects with them, and we expect that to continue to grow, and we will -- are having and we'll continue to have conversations with them as to how we can further help and eventually hopeful look for further integration and think of a very efficient and cost-effective manufacturing footprint in North America. So we will continue those discussions with them, and we'll continue to be a very good partner to them. And hopefully, we'll be able to continue to grow that business at a very, very nice rate.

[Paul Trejo, analyst]

Can you remind me again what percentage of your sales sort of this year that represented the export. And these are all the majority of your sales in dollars, in hard currency?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Yes, sales are in dollars and it roughly represents about 8% of our sales.

[Paul Trejo, analyst]

8% of total sales. Great.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Yes, that's all exports. That's finished products across growth sales. And within that 8% finished products, as you mentioned, continues to gain ground rapidly.

[Paul Trejo, analyst]

And any thoughts on where that 8% can go in kind of the midterm?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

It's hard to tell, Paul. I would love to give you a number, but it really will depend on how together with the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, we could come up with a strategy that benefits both in an important way. So again, we we're continually talking to them, and we will continue to have these discussions. And hopefully, this will continue to be a bigger part of the business, but we still have to work through that.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over for closing remarks.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Well, thank you again all for participating on the call. We really, really appreciate it. Thanks for the questions. As you all mentioned, top quarter, but we are confident that the actions will take -- we're taking will allow us to improve results sequentially as I mentioned during the first half and puts us in a position to have a strong second happen and a strong 2022. And we are working diligently at heart to make that happen, and we're excited about the opportunities and how we will, I'm sure, come out of this whole period.

So thanks again. Thanks for your questions, and our very, very best wishes for all of you and your families in 2022. Look forward to talking to you after the first quarter results. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect.