Kepler Weber SA

BOVESPA:KEPL3

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q2

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Kepler Weber conference call to discuss the results of the second quarter of 2020. With us today are Mr. Piero Abbondi, CEO and Investor Relations Director; and Mr. André Acosta, CFO of the company. For your information, this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

This event is being transmitted via webcast and can be accessed at www.kepler.com.br/ri, where the presentation will be available for download. You will control the slides, and the teleconference will be available at the end of this conference call.

Before proceeding, we'd like to remind you that forward-looking statements made during this call are based on Kepler Weber business' operations, operational and financial projections. Forward-looking statements should not be taken as a guarantee for performance. These considerations involve market conditions, the performance of the Brazilian economy, industry and international markets and, therefore, are subject to change because they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that the general economic conditions, industry and other operation factors could also affect the future of Kepler Weber and may cause results that materially differ from those expressed in forward-looking statements.

Now I'd like to pass the floor to Mr. Piero Abbondi, President and Investor Relations Director. He will conduct the first part of the presentation.

[Piero Abbondi, executive]

Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be here with you to share Kepler's results of the second quarter. And I thank you for being interested in our company.

Well, talking about the quarter, I would say it was a very turbulent quarter for several reasons. We were a sector strongly affected by the pandemic general working conditions and also, but we have the optimistic idea for the market conditions. So I will talk briefly about this so you can have an idea. So the pandemic brought significant results. It started at the end of April, and we followed the official guidelines to adequate, adjust the plants for the Health Ministry guidelines. We had vacations from March to April in both plants. We didn't have any revenue during this country. Our administrative people started to work from home, and the field people had restrictions, especially on trips, air trips. So it was a very difficult situation with several uncertainties, lots of learning and all the Kepler professionals had very important role to overcome this moment of uncertainties and difficulties.

You will see during the presentation that Kepler performed very well, and we are prepared to face future challenges. Still on the pandemic, we created 2 committees, the Executive Committee met daily and the Operational Committee also to take the important actions and make them operable. With this, I believe and we had this proved with very significant results, especially related with health and safety. The company's environment is of comfort to people, feel safe to work at Kepler. We are following all the guidelines not to expose our collaborators to any risk. With this, our employees are committed in the productivity of the company.

We see this -- you can see this in the first slide, Page 3, what we were able to get. In Campo Grande, we were recognized as a safe company in a very brief survey we carried with different companies and countries. We got an excellent result showing that we have a positive action in several points as health, well-being and with a positive perception with a very good communication. So these were big challenges, and you will see that our net revenue was reduced because we had almost 3 weeks without no revenues, but we are prepared to the future, and the results were positive. The company searched for effectiveness and productivity to face this situation.

In next slide, just to show you our certificate, we were awarded by SESI. I think it's very important because it was provided by the community and by the internal public, so this shows the confidence that people have in the company. It's important to keep the team united during this period of uncertainties. We still have uncertainties. We don't know how the second semester will be. We are very optimist. We believe that everything will be solved, but we need to be prepared for a possible second wave, as said, in Europe. The company is prepared for that, and we are doing everything to face these challenges.

So I mentioned the setbacks, the unfavorable events. We were not the only ones to suffer this, the entire world economy suffered but, however, we are privileged as Kepler. We are inserted in a chain that didn't suffer that much. The food chain was not so hardly affected. Some channels may be more than others, like restaurants, but people do not go to the restaurant, but they eat at home. So we saw that the food consumption from supermarkets increased showing that the consumption in the chain is happening, some channels suffering more than others. So we see the producer were still producing, delivering, showing that the country is reliable in food supply. We didn't have any supply problems and Kepler in this chain has great opportunities.

The Brazilian exports also were a record in the first semester. The ports were working. All our crop flew normally, 250 million tons was the crop for this year, and we forecast 270 million for the next season year that starts in July 1. And Brazil is consolidated as a big exporter. The agricultural sector is still operating with restrictions. We saw this in the beginning, but we saw sales, customer services as being virtually. We have monitoring for any possible contamination of an employee or a third-party to be immediately isolated. So this scenario was good, and let's see what we are expecting for next season year.

In the next slide, we will talk about the deficit, which is another leverage for growth in our business. We said that the -- that agriculture is growing. We are going towards 270 million or 300 million in next year. So the future is promising. As equipment suppliers for post-harvest and storage, we have another important leverage because Brazil produces 250 million tons and I will show this in the next slide. And at same time, the storage capacity is 170 million. So here, we show how it is distributed.

The most important regions are the South and Midwest region, the regions with the biggest production, largest production. We have 55.7 million tons in the Midwest. But in the Southeast, we had a loss of effectiveness. A higher capacity of storage and processing increases the income of the producer. So with this, Brazil is not capturing this. On the left side, left bottom, you see the installed storage capacity in the forms -- in the origin, you see Brazil is lagging behind other producer countries like United States and Argentina, Brazil has only 16% of the installed storage capacity in the farms. This leads to a loss to the producer. So there is a huge potential for the producers, the farmers to invest to have more efficiency and productivity. So this is where we believe the producer can get more gains. We see this in the farms, but what we did in terms of seeds, planting and following the production will continue, but we didn't capture the biggest gains, and we believe we can gain more with this produce chain whether in Brazil -- starting this in Brazil or in the port.

In Slide #8, we see historically, the behavior of the grains crop, the red line, and the bars is the storage capacity. We clearly see the gap of 80 million tons in storage capacity. This is closely related with financing, with funding. Since it's a long-term investment in capital goods, it is normal that the businessman, the producer looks for funding for this investment. And in Brazil, we lack this long-term capital. So the financing we have, the classic financial is the Plano Safra from BNDES. It was announced in June for the next year. And the one for building warehouses has an increase. Last year, it was 1.8 billion, 200 million from last year [ designated ] to grain producers were not used, and they will use this year.

In net resources, we'll have 2.4 billion, which is good for our sector, but it's not enough due to the needs of the country. This red line will continue to increase 2023, '25, we will have at 300 and then 350. So these bars will accelerate and we, Kepler, and the entire sector must look for a solution to these needs. I mentioned the classic financing line, but I believe we are entering in another moment with the drop in the interest rate, SELIC, we see more conditions for the private credit to go to this long-term financing. We see some movements in this sense, several banks and financial institutions trying to do so. And we believe in next years, we'll have a larger presence of the private sector, which is another growth leverage.

And the third leverage is as the SELIC is at 2%, the rural producer, the farmer will have much more incentive instead of leaving the resources in the bank and allocated in fixed income will be prone to invest in the business. So a plant of storage is much investing on -- storage is much more profitable for the farmer than leaving the money in the bank. So these 3 factors, a good season, low interest rate and more credit or private credit.

With this, I believe I gave you a scenario of the agricultural sector, now let's talk about the benefits of a storage plant for the former. We have the operational benefit. The product is blended, standardized, cleaned with the price established by the market. Logistic resources decrease the cost as he can have short-distance freights. And then for sales freight, he can sell in another moment. It allows for a better schedule of the harvest, benefiting for climate -- of climate windows. If you have the storage close to the farm, the producer can benefit, avoiding logistics, not only for harvesting, but also for the flow of the harvest. And it gives the farmer the empowerment, the producers are able to choose the most appropriate moment to sell their harvest at a more profitable time. So all these items together bring lots of benefits to the producer and to the chain.

Not to mention that you have all the technological potential to benefit from. We launched, last year, our digital platform. I will touch on this later. So we have technologies, information technologies in the cloud. We'll allow other activities, for instance, blockchain in the control -- online control of the grain quality, better management of the chain opportunities to improve the credit with the online follow-up of the inventory, the digital access to a form. In addition to the traditional benefits, opens a window of opportunity to the producer.

Slide 10 shows how Kepler is positioned. Kepler is the leader in equipment supply. It is positioned in the largest exports chain. We celebrate 95 years in May. It's a strong name with a recognized line of products. We are a leader in post-harvest storage in Latin America with a wide service structure, we help our clients in the follow-up of release and finance both in BNDES line.

We have an exclusive technology that allows us to follow up and automate the plants system and have this information available online through the cloud to be accessed anywhere. We are concerned with the project implementation. We have a dedicated area for that. We have a structure with the assembling, we have a development and training program for assemblers for the companies to give support. Our customers, they buy the equipment, but they need to receive the plant assembled and working. And we have 4 distribution centers providing support for sales and technical assistance. We are opening the fifth distribution center in Cuiabá. So Kepler is well positioned to capture all these opportunities.

Let's see our projects, our plans. We have several customers with their pictures in different sizes, some plants are bigger, some are smaller, some have higher processing capacity in different places in Brazil, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul showing our projects and our geography diversity. I mentioned our digital platform. It's called Sync. This is another service product that we are making available to our customers with a 4.0 industry concept with data control in all equipment. It allows for the automation of all equipment. We can have -- we can do first the automation of one equipment and then we have the scalability for the entire plant. We have control panels, a digital monitor that captures all the information on the site and then allows for the automation through a local processing on site. And all of this can be sent through an IoT portal. You can have this in the clouds and the owner will have access to all this information remotely.

In Slide 14, we show what is this platform. This is a customer in Rio Grande do Sul. These equipment are in the born. You can start small, being connected through a solar panel that captures all the data of the hopper and could put this -- sent to the cloud, and you have these panels for each of the equipment and then you can automate, send to the cloud and have the entire automation of the plant. This leads to the benefit of the technology with all automation. The new plants are being sold now with these equipment that opens window of opportunity to sell this equipment for the existing plants. The owners can have this to the digital platform. Well, this is an overview of our business, about Kepler, the market, the pandemic situation.

And now let's move to the financial results. I will briefly touch. This is Slide 16. We had reduction in the net revenue, both in the semester and the quarter, but however, we had positive results. They were more positive due to the tax credit we had. But if we look to the adjusted EBITDA results, it is still very good. We had 11.2% in this semester and 8% adjusted for the second quarter. So even with the adverse situation of the market, this shows the robustness of the company.

I believe the company is doing a longer-term work for improved efficiency to be a more effective company, a better management of margins, prices and delivery, delivery of products and services that are recognized by the customer as a premium service with added value. The customer is willing to pay more for this. It's a careful work we did along the years. Even with these adverse situations, we were able to deliver positive results. This is the commitment of all the company, the 1,200 internal employees and our business partners and representatives as well as our assembly partners.

Now I will give the floor to André, our Financial Director, who will share with you the financial results. Thank you for your attention.

[André Luís Acosta, executive]

Thank you, Piero. Thank you all for your presence here. We see the main results, starting with the net revenue of the second semester of BRL 94 million, even corresponding to 21% of the net revenue. EBITDA, 24.9% of net revenues. And adjusted EBITDA, 7.9% of the net revenues. And net income of BRL 15.2 million, 16% of the net revenues. And the accrued BRL 221.5 million revenues with the gross profit accounting for 22.6% of net revenues. EBITDA accumulated 18.5% and adjusted EBITDA, 11.2% of net revenues. Net income of BRL 23.9 million, 10.8% of the net revenues. We see positive results concerning the exclusion of ICMS on the basis of the calculation of PIS, COFINS.

On next slide, we see the net revenues dropping 19.7%, the most affected sector was storage. And this was linked to the loss of volume we had in April due to the collective vacations because of the pandemic and the accumulated drop of 13% where storage had 26% of drop and the other segment had a positive growth, especially bulk and Replacement and Services is 37.8%.

Slide 18. When we talk about the cost of goods sold in the second quarter, we had 18% drop, very linked to the drop in the volume of revenues. And the quarter percentage, we were above the same period last year, but in the accumulated, we have 77.4%, showing that we had a gain in productivity in this process of products sold.

In next slide, we see the reflects of our revenue and cost of products sold, BRL 20.8 million against BRL 27.9 million last year. And the percentage, 23.8% against 21%, an 8-point percent dropped with 54.9% last year and 22.6% this year. We had a better margin with the -- even within the drop in the revenue due to what happened, especially in April, but we had a good performance in percentage terms. Considering expenses, sales expenses linked to the increase in commissions paid to the dealers in the Replacement and Services segment and exports that -- because of the exchange. So we had BRL 19.9 million versus BRL 16.8 million last year. But this is due to the increase in commission, administrative expenses, we have a reduction for the quarter was BRL 400 in the crude for the year with BRL 22.5 million against BRL 23.1 million. This is related to expenses that were smaller due to less travel participation and fares because of the pandemic.

In Slide 21, the EBITDA. We have a very positive effect. This is the result of the strategy with the product mix and prices with nonrecurring tax credits. We had BRL 23.9 million in the second 3 and in the accumulated 40.9% last year was BRL 27.0 million. You see the EBITDA of the margin with reflects from the nonrecurring tax credits.

In Slide 22, we have the adjusted EBITDA, showing that the nonrecurring effects were important, BRL 24.1 million of the net revenue. Adjusted EBITDA for 2019 was BRL 34.4 million with a BRL 9.6 million drop. And the main effect is because of the lower volume, about 14% that reflected almost BRL 12 million in the EBITDA value compared to last year. This is now the net result. We see BRL 35.7 million for the accumulated in the year, 16% of the net revenue second quarter you see 24.4%.

In the last line, you have the margin -- net margin BRL 15.2 million. Last year, we have a loss of BRL 3.5 million, excluding the nonrecurring events, we see an improvement in relation to the second quarter of last year. And the accumulated, excluding the nonrecurrent event, we had a result of BRL 6 million positive. So a very positive margin, 10.8% versus last year, 0.2% even with the nonrecurrent events positive and the drop in the revenue, we had positive operational result better than last year.

The financial result, which is different from the financial expenses. We have the recognition of the monetary variation of this tax credit in BRL 10 million that provide a BRL 9.3 million for net results. We had the impact of the exchange rate of the dollar and also a tax impact in the revenues. So it was BRL 9.3 million positive in relation to the BRL 1.7 million negative on last year, a margin of BRL 4.2 million in net revenues.

Indebtedness and cash. We have a very comfortable position. We guarantee the revenue or the invoicing behavior, we are focused in preserving cash, reducing costs and expenses. And we closed with BRL 145 million in December as well, we have a very positive recovery. And net indebtedness of BRL 91.9 million last year was BRL 44.8 million. So we see financial liquidity in the performance of the company.

Slide 26 and 27 show the comparison of the quarter, this year and last year and the accumulated. I'm not going into details, you have the data for you.

And going to Slide 28, we see our performance in the capital market. We have a valuation of 27.2%, and we have a depreciation of 17.8%. We saw a depreciation of 27%, and capital performed better. We have BRL 4.9 million in June and BRL 1.1 million in June last year. So you see the average financial volume of the company.

And that's what I have. I thank you very much, and we are open for final considerations and any questions you may have. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We'd like to close now the Q&A session. We give the floor back to Mr. Piero Abbondi, Investors Relations Director, for his final considerations.

[Piero Abbondi, executive]

So I'd like to thank you. And since there were no questions, I would take the liberty to elaborate more on the company. What we showed in these last of 45 minutes is that our company is robust. In spite of all difficulties, the company delivers satisfactory results. The first semester was satisfactory, a company with a cash robustness, it is very important to have cash, first, for the shareholder, showing that the company can face more difficult cycles but at the same time, the customers, the client need this robustness because we are a project company and the clients start to pay beforehand. We start to receive to make the design. Before the client has the work complete and operating, he had already paid for the great part of the project. So the client is like a Kepler creditor and the client needs to know that he's working with a robust company and will have the guarantee of receiving the work, the plant as expected. We want always to go beyond the expectations of our customers.

We work on 3 vectors: Profitability, sustainability and growth. Since last year, the complete year, we delivered very satisfactory results. We continue to do so. And the company was -- went through a very important stress test, and we see the results of the company. So we will continue to be like this, strong to keep the sustainability to advance in our growth. This shows that the company is prepared to capture any opportunities we have ahead, I believe it will be very good. I mentioned this mid- and long-term scenario. But in the short term, we'll have a very positive scenario.

The producer is planning for a very strong crop. The first estimates are about 270 million. So in the year, very strong in the international market our exports. China is buying a lot. So this takes us to a very good second semester, and Kepler is prepared for that. We see this reflected on the price of our shares, the market recognizing and being interested in our company. This make -- we're very proud of it.

With this, I close. I thank you very much for your interest and a special thanks to our collaborators, who are going through important situation and stress, but they are delivering good results. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.

[Operator]

With this, we conclude the Kepler Weber conference call. We thank you all for your participation, and wish you have a nice day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]