Santos Brasil Participacoes SA

BOVESPA:STBP3

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Santos Brasil First Quarter 2024 results conference call. Present with us today are the CEO, Antônio Carlos Sepúlveda, the Economic Financial and Investor Relations Director, Daniel Pedreira Dorea; and the Commercial Director, Ricardo dos Santos Buteri. At this moment, all participants are connected as listeners only. Ensuing this, we will begin the question-and-answer session when further information will be provided. I would like to remind you that the earnings release and the earnings presentation are available in the company's investor site, where the recording of the event will be made available. In addition to the Portuguese and English language rooms, we have Brazilian sign language.Before proceeding, please keep in mind that any statements that may be made about Santos Brasil business projects as well as projections or operational and financial targets, are beliefs and assumptions of the company's management and information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantees of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should understand that overall conditions, industry conditions could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. I will now give the floor over to Daniel Pedreira Dorea, who will begin the presentation. You may proceed, sir.

[Daniel Dorea, executive]

Well, good morning, everybody. I hope you are well, and thank you for your attendance. Besides me, Antônio Carlos Sepúlveda, the company's CEO; and Ricardo Buteri, our Commercial Director. Santos Brasil has had a remarkable start of the year with sound growth and practically all of our business units is strong indication that the coming quarters should be even better, not least because we don't see a slowdown in aggregate consumer demand or even in consumer confidence vis-a-vis our investments, anything that could impact the scenario for 2024. The performance of Santos Brasil in the first quarter of the year reflects an improvement in all of the flows to which the company has exposure whether in long haul both imports and exports or in cabotage. Additionally, the mix between full and empty containers also showed significant improvement with an annual growth of 33% in the handling of full containers at Tecon Santos, we observed a 29% increase in the volume of containers handled in the first quarter of 2024 vis-a-vis the same period last year. In this context, it is even more important to observe the quality of the mix operated at Tecon Santos with emphasis on the 34% year-on-year growth in imports, 26% in exports and 18% in cabotage. The import volumes had the unloading of chemical products, consumer goods and capital goods. For exports, we benefited from the high demand of commodities like cotton, coffee, sugar and frozen meat in the routes to Asia and the United States. Another valid observation is that this growth is primarily derived from the Port of Santos itself with no significant influence at least for the time being of the three new regular services already operated by Tecon Santos during the first quarter, two of which are long haul and one cabotage. What we noticed is that Santos Brasil continues to be able to capture almost two-thirds of the extra calls operated at the Port of Santos that were 29 in the quarter as well as having benefited from a 23% increase in the average consignment of services compared to the first quarter '23. As a result, Tecon Santos ended the quarter as a leader with a market share of 39%. At the company's other container terminals Tecon Vila do Conde also had good performance with a growth of 11% year-on-year driven by the floor of cabotage due to higher consumption of nondurable goods and construction products, but also with a significant increase in long haul and the share of full containers reached 60%, 5% points more vis-a-vis the first quarter '23. At Tecon Imbituba, we started operating a new long-haul service for South America, the Caribbean and the United States route. The terminal container handling grew 27% in the first quarter of '24 vis-a-vis the same period of '23. The handling of full containers grew 33.10% and in the general cargo terminal, there was an increase of 85%. The warehouse operations had a growth of 24% in the first quarter of 24% vis-a-vis the first quarter of '23. At Santos Brasil LogÃstica, the Funding was due to higher imports at the Port of Santos with an increase of 9% for the number of containers stored in the first quarter of '24. Even with the migration of the service of B2B, Tecon Santos did not have a material impact and was able to offset that loss by capturing cargo from other terminals. I draw your attention to this because on the right margin of the Port of Santos, we had a drop of 18% in imports. There was also a drop in logistic -- integrated logistics because of the lower demand of the automotive terminal. The Liquid Bulk Terminals are still in an accelerated ramp-up phase, handling 244,000 cubic meters of fuel in the first quarter '24, an increase of 107% year-on-year, reflecting the conquest of new clients, including longer-term [payer pay] contract and an increase in terminal turnover. Another piece of good news is the granting of customs clearance for our operational terminals, which will increase the addressable market, enabling us to compete for fuel imports to the Port of Itaqui. Finally, the vehicle terminal was the only business unit to show a drop in volume in the quarter. Because of a drop of exports of light vehicles to South American countries, especially Colombia, Peru and Argentina. It should be noted that imports grew twofold in terms of the volume recorded in the first quarter of '23, especially due to the anticipation of electrical vehicles before the readjustment of the import tax rate scheduled to come into fourth in the second half of 2024. Only 48% of the imported vehicles had left the [indiscernible] by the end of the first quarter due to the delay in clearance of agencies such as IBAMA. So, there was no turnover on this additional volume. Hence, the drop in the year-on-year comparison. The trade is good. The flow is good, but we will only see it materialize as the vehicles are cleared in the second quarter.Now to go to the financial and economic highlights. Net revenue totaled BRL 645 million in the first quarter of '24 million, representing an increase of 51% year-on-year, reflecting mainly the higher volume recorded in all of the business units except for the terminal for vehicles and the increase in the average imports ticket, positively impacted by the improvement in the mix of containers, including imports and the effect of the contractual readjustments fully priced in the first quarter of '24. EBITDA totaled BRL 321 million in the first quarter of '24, a 109% year-on-year growth with a margin of 50%, an increase of 14% points vis-a-vis the first quarter '23. If we isolate only the container terminals business unit, EBITDA registered BRL 300 million with a margin of 16%, up 15% points vis-a-vis the first quarter '23. There is still margin expansion room over the course of the year, whose contribution in 2024 will come from the high operating leverage of our assets, especially Tecon Santos, which is starting to monthly present volumes close to 100,000 containers with a high-quality cargo mix. Net profit grew by 222% reaching BRL 147 million with a net margin of 23%, an increase of 12% in the first quarter of '24 vis-a-vis the first quarter '23. From a capital allocation perspective, in the first quarter of 2024, we invested BRL 116 million in the expansion and modernization of our assets with emphasis on the Liquid Bulk Terminals at Tecon Santos, where we invested BRL 74 million and BRL 40 million, respectively. The dividends totaled BRL 214 million, including the complementary dividend paid in April, representing a payout of 100% of distributable net profit for the 2023 fiscal year. In view of this, the net debt reached BRL 92 million, already better optimizing the company's capital structure. But with the level of financial leverage that is extremely low. This grants us great flexibility to continue pursuing strategies to generate value for our shareholders, and this is what we will do. As a final message, I ratify our positive and constructive vision not only for the year 2024, but in the short and long term, especially in the container segment as the Port of Santos. Our vision is that more capacity will continue to be demanded at the port with Santos Brasil has the operational excellence and financial potential to expand the range of its services and absorb a good portion of Port of Santos future demand. Very well. These were my comments -- we will now open the floor for questions and answers as we normally do. Once again, I would like to thank you. And besides myself, we have Antônio Carlos Sepúlveda and Ricardo Buteri at your disposal.

[Operator]

Thank you, everybody. We will now go on to the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Gabriel Rezende from Itaú.

[Gabriel Rezende, analyst]

Good morning, everybody. Congratulations for very expressive results once again. I understand that the company has ended a relevant cycle of price adjustment. If you could comment on what was precontracted in terms of readjustment for this year so that we can refine our modeling your contract with your main client was done in April. There will be another adjustment in the second quarter and adjustments with their clients in the second half of the year. If you have a more specific comment on the mix, we should observe in April. You reported a growth of 20% year-on-year in volume, very good for a quarter, but the mix seems to be an important factor for your levels of profitability. These are my questions.

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

Thank you for the two questions. Your analysis is very asserted in the following points. First of all, all of the contracts matured in 2023. We carried out a renegotiation. And beginning in this year 2024, the contracts after one year will have a price and readjustment because of the hail pre-fixed for the entire year. So, in the first quarter, what I can say is that a single ship owner has a new pricing that entered into effect in March. From April to December, we have 12 additional contracts, specifically with Tecon Santos following the modality prefixed prices negotiated in 2023 and where the price table will increase for a period of two years. Regarding the question of mix, we truly do have a very favorable mix because of the imports and higher volumes in full containers, not only for the Tecon Santos, and we have not identified any flexibility that there will be a change in the mix. Signs have been very clear, and I'll give you some examples. Ships coming from Asia, have a production of more than 80% consignment growing more than 23%. So we have shipped bringing in more cargo and regular services, an increase in additional costs to the Port of Santos and also new ships carrying out that phase in and phase out in a service that has six ships with 6,000 fuels going to six ships of 14,000 TEUs beginning in July this year. So the trend is favorable for continuity. And this is what we have identified not only for the quarter, but for the year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Pedro Bruno from XP.

[Pedro Bruno, analyst]

We have two, the first on your CapEx and your strategy. More recently, you stated you will anticipate as much as possible the capacity expansion, which makes sense because of the present day scenario and because of the marginal return on capital allocation. This, of course, is an issue of timing. To better understand the allocation during 2024 if you could go back to this strategy. We have seen BRL 116 million allocated to CapEx, which is below our expectation, annual expectation for this year and what you communicated in the guidance. So if I could understand the phasing of the CapEx for Imbituba and Vila do Conde, where we observed less investments in this first quarter. And of course, Tecon Santos, where the investment was lower except for in Liquid Bulk. Now this is the first question. I will then pose the second one.

[Antônio Sepúlveda, executive]

This is Antonio Carlos. We're maintaining the CapEx that we set forth at the beginning of the year, around BRL 700,000. Most of the CapEx is at the Port of Itaqui, and we will comply with this. We do have a schedule. We're completing the expansion of the first brownfield. And at the end of the year, we will deliver the expansion of the second brownfield. Now there have been some delays, but due to contracts and perhaps slight problems in cash. Tecon Santos will begin to consume more CapEx. We have already begun the construction works of the new buildings outside of the side of the terminal. We demolished the existing buildings and have increased the capacity. We have also received the equipment that will be conditioned now and we have payments to make. We believe, therefore, that we will be adhering to the guidance to that idea we set forth of BRL 7 million. Since the end of 2023, we have already scheduled the anticipation of investments. We were saving a greater demand. We have had many opportunities and the bottleneck that we have at present in the terminal is connected to the hiring of personnel and not equipment and area per se. I'm referring to an increase of capacity. We continue to operate -- we operated in April with the same format, although we have hired almost 300 people since the beginning of the year for Tecon Santos, but we require long periods of training. So, the terminal has been operating in this fashion. We still have not been able to gain capacity because of the contracting. This should only happen at the end of the month when the personnel will be ready to take on their positions, and we will be able to increase our supply of capacity. Now we're following closely almost every week at Santos Brasil. And we also have a schedule for the entry of new capacity in the terminal. The goal is to always maintain 300,000 TEUs of buffer, which has been maintained. And we will end the cycle of investment, immediately begin another cycle, precisely to build again and open up more room between supply and demand so that we don't have pressure Tecon Santos.

[Pedro Bruno, analyst]

My second question refers to the services implemented simply to help us to think about the ramp-up of volume between the first and second quarters to validate if it is correct. I understand you have two new services coming from BTP, from MSC, on for February and the other one coming into play in May simply to validate this. And then in Imbituba a new service as well that became fully operational as of April that you reported in your data. I presume this will be recurrent for the end of the year, and we still have a ramp-up because of the services implemented not only of MSC, but CMA as well. The fact that they will come in during the quarter will carry over into the future. I don't know if you have additional services you could mention. Now we simply want to validate if our understanding is correct.

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

Thank you for the question on the services impacted. Yes, the vision is correct. That's precisely what we said when we were presenting the close of the year of 2023. To put this in order and to share this with everybody, we will ratify the following. In true three services have come into play to long haul and cabotage in the first quarter of '24. They brought about an average of 100,000 containers this quarter. You are correct. When you look towards the future, especially beginning in the second quarter, with an additional carryover we did carry out an agreement with MSC Geneva so that the second window could be available as of May. The contract has been duly signed. It will be valid for one year with clauses and premises for both parties. So, this window will probably begin. We're waiting for the arrival of the first ship, the announcement of arrival in the second fortnight of May. So, all of this will begin in the second quarter -- in the second half of the year. I'm sorry. Now to speak about new services, yes, we have several conversations and negotiations underway, not only for Tecon Santos, we have sent proposals to services and ship orders considering Imbituba and Vila do Conde as well. At present, Tecon Santos has all of these windows duly taken and any opportunity of additional call between one service and another as you were able to see at the beginning of the year means we are contributing to ensure that we have greater fluidity in this demand. What is positive about this Pedro is that despite the increase of -- an increase in regular additional calls, we have had the best level of services at Porto de Santos for users and clients. So, there will be a ramp up. All of this will begin in the second quarter and will continue to grow until the end of the year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Lucas Marquiori from BTG Pactual.

[Lucas Marquiori, analyst]

I have two topics. First, well, I want an update on the operation of BTP. We would like to know if you're already working with repairs, if the terminal is operating normally or if you still have a situation of restriction simply to follow up on the process. The second topic within the possibilities, which is the grab of prices between Tecon and BTP to perhaps anticipate a flow of additional volume, pricing for 2024. If there is a pickup in the box rate of both terminals?

[Antônio Sepúlveda, executive]

What we do have in terms of information is that the BTP work will be delivered by the service vendor in July of this year. So, we have July and August where the terminal will once again operate. I wanted to clarify that this will not change what would have been happening with us, everything that has gone to Tecon was contracted for a period that proceeds that date of July so we have no concern whatsoever when it comes to losing some volumes for Tecon. Now in terms of prices, I cannot specify this at present based on what shipowners have remarked. Our price is higher than BTP, but the services are very different as well. We have confidence that we have well-adjusted prices, and we could charge half of what BTP charges. If we had more capacity, and we will still have great volumes. And that is why services come back to us. That terminal is for to ship owners. And at Santos Brazil, it depends on the type of products we offer a large space for transshipment and very efficient links for cabotage and the ability to absorb higher volume. So, this dynamic is the dynamic that has been drawn up for the last three years in that first negotiation that we carried out with Merck. And this is how our commercial area has been working, seeking partners that have that fit. I'm going to change a bit here. Perhaps it will help you in your understanding. In Brazil, we have four large ship owners and four of them have their cabotage line and they are very well established. Cabotage has been growing. It occupies 15% of the volume on the coasts approximately and has an enormous importance for the transportation of cargo and Santos has become consolidated and support that concentrates in Brazil. The port authority has money. They will begin to execute work to increase the depth of the channel. What I learned the other day, this I heard the schedule. I will begin with the deepening and what will happen with the licensing of the first level of deepening because they will highlight that characteristic of concentration of the Port of Santos. The larger ships will be able to enter and leave without problems. And the demand, of course, will increase. So, we continue with a highly updated product. We're convinced that we have been pricing correctly as well, and BTP will always be extremely [indiscernible] about the growth of the port will be based on this on transshipment, cargo, FIDE and the growth of the Santos Port as a highly competitive port in Brazil, working with containers. We have proteins and containers for export. And well, the industry is investing massively several assembly plants that are faithful to the Port of Santos. So we do have some very good years ahead with Tecon being well positioned. Now these changes -- these timely changes will not impact our journey.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Guilherme Mendes from JPMorgan.

[Guilherme Mendes, analyst]

Thank you for taking my question. Two points. The first, Daniel mentioned this in the presentation speaking about better prices for the second quarter. Now how should we think about this not only for the quarter but for all coming quarters and the magnitude of the improvement as the first quarter did have significant enhancements. The second question referring to the increase of capacity at the port as a whole? At Tecon Santos specifically, but which is your vision of the increase of capacity from the port coming from competitors, from the areas of [Sobral] and other unexplored areas by the port authority?

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

I will answer your first question about the demand at the TEV. In fact, exports did have a drop vis-a-vis the first quarter because of the countries of the Andean community after Argentina lost its market share. As a counterpart commented by Daniel on the increase of record volumes in import. This is linked to a temporary need of bringing electrical cars before the change in taxation and the need set forth by assembly plants is that there will be an extremely high levels of imports for this year from the Latin American countries despite the increase in levies or tax rates. So this recovery, you mentioned is feasible. And if we think about the forecast for the year, even if we don't recover the volumes, we would wish to have the tickets are somewhat higher, as Daniel mentioned, because of dwell-time and storage and the imports of vehicles will be positive in volume and ticket until the end of the year based on the forecast we have with the assembly plants at present. Regarding the increase of capacity at the port, it hasn't changed very much, not different from what we said in the last call. Project that is underway is to ramp up the existing terminals. We do have an investment plan for expansion. But besides the plant, the port authority is surveying the expansion in the [indiscernible] area that is side-by-side in the area of Sobral. And for the mid and long term, they're surveying the use of the island of [indiscernible] to build a new terminal. So this is a long-term project, of course. It's one of the last sites in the organized port where you can build a large terminal of 42 hectares, a medium-sized terminal and with possible expansion, nothing is certain of BTP and Santos Brasil. Both terminals would go there. Santos Brasil 80 hectares, BTP 60 hectares. So it will end up creating larger terminals. Now this format that is there now favors a strategy of Santos as a port of concentration. As I mentioned before, having large yards to handle all of the transshipment that should arrive in Santos and that concept of having two terminals as an anchor for transshipment and cabotage would be excellent for logistics in Sao Paulo. What we have there's nothing different. This is a project that the port authority has been surveying and debating before it can execute it.

[Guilherme Mendes, analyst]

A follow-up on the timing of the surveys If we could have an idea when they will be concluded and when there will be a definition if they continue on with the projects or not?

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

I believe Guilherme that this process will take the entire year still that is barred. Well, they're not isolated at the port that is connected with a tunnel, with the passenger area that will change sites to be able to open up a [fertilizers] terminal, the active, especially on the right bank, which is the more critical part of Santos. So, they're carrying out a more in-depth impact survey. At least this is what I have understood. I believe it will take the rest of the year to recompile and group all of the information and see which will be the best solution for the port. At Santos, we have an enormous growth of other cargoes as well, a very strong demand for pulp. There are expansions at all plants. There's demand for even more pulp at the port. Now the exit of fertilizers from Santos, everything is done by trucking and not by train. And there is no shipment that would occupy the wagon for very short periods and a very high demand for soybeans. Nowadays, there's more capacity that we had in the past for railroads, there have been heavy investments. They're opening up new fronts in the center west. And of course, it opens up spaces for of commodities like corn and soybeans. So, they're trying to set up an equation that will end up with a good result generating well for foreign trade here.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Andressa Varotto from UBS.

[Andressa Varotto, analyst]

Thank you for taking our questions. We have two follow-ups. First, we would like to speak about storage, warehousing. If you have an update on the strike? This increased dwell time somewhat and offset a reduction in the rate of retention, which is your outlook for this line item for the rest of the year? And what is happening with the [indiscernible]. My second question that refers to the contractual renegotiation for the coming year. In the last call, you said the company would hold a road show with our ship owners. Have they already had these conversations? And can you share some feedback regarding these conversations?

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

In terms of warehousing, so stopover -- stops are standard operations. They never happen simultaneously at the same point. We did have an increase in dwell time, not very expressive because they don't bring 100% of the clearance to [indiscernible] otherwise, the port would stop. We had an increase of 1 day, 1.5 days. Some agencies have returned to work and others continue with this standard operation. One was mentioned that the speech IBAMA, which means we do have a longer dwell time for imported cars in the TEV, but they are being cleared. They're not remaining too long to create favorable outliers. Now the dwell time is within expectation 1 day, 1.5 days, depending on the day of a week, but falling under our control. Now regarding the roadshow of ship owners, yes, we did mention that. The commercial area carried out a road show in Asia. We participated in global supply conferences. It is not a negotiation roadshow. It is geared to relationship information of what was in course in terms of capacity increase, not only at Port of Santos, but Vila do Conde as well to have an idea on the planning of the ship owners on these trips. We had the opportunity to bring additional calls to the Port of Imbituba. And with the new service, CMN, given that the southern region of Brazil, more specifically Santa Catarina, the ports are highly occupied and speak about the feedback of the shipowners and cargo, we thought we could attract other services. These other services are still not regular services. There are negotiations underway. And briefly, we will offer you positive news regarding this. So, the road show took place in China as well as in Singapore. And about the renegotiation of 2025, the first will take place in April of 2025. So, we have some time. You are aware of our strategy of generating capacity, a buffer, which is very positive and interesting to show to the shipowner where we're investing, how long it will take to have this new capacity within -- without impacting our service level at present. And negotiations, of course, will begin in 2025. What I can say in a pragmatic fashion is that in 2025, we look upon the issues of volume and price very optimistically.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco BBI.

[Victor Mizusaki, analyst]

Congratulations for the results. I have two questions. The first about the capital structure. Now giving the pace of investments, and you have already referred to your CapEx plan, is there room or would it make sense to think about special dividends or perhaps work with a buyback? The second question Antônio Carlos, if you could comment further on what would be discussed, given not only the growing volumes of containers, but considering your expansion plan of BTP and of Santos Brasil itself.

[Daniel Dorea, executive]

About the capital structure, we do have room for a great deal here. There's a company that is generating a good free cash flow. It will be growing going forward because there will be a drop in CapEx. So, we are working with some instruments we have at our disposal that could generate good value for their shareholders. One is a dividend recap. Yes, we do have room for that. We also can work with a buyback of shares. So, these are instruments that we do have room for and that we are assessing. At the right time, we will make a decision of which will be the path that we heard to. Now this will not hamper the company's capacity of financing its CapEx. We understand this would not make economic sense because of the reasons that were mentioned of the balance at the Port of Santos and until the end of the decade, I don't foresee anything that could alter our course. So, we're ready, we're quite ready for that.

[Antônio Sepúlveda, executive]

About your question of highway access. In fact, the port has been growing a great deal and the structure, especially the basic structure of coming down from the hill hasn't changed in the last 20 years. Now what do we have in terms of novelties? First of all, there is a continued -- continued transfer of highway cargo to railroad. So, what we're painting in the green terminal, these investments will take out the truck from the highways and the cargo will go to the railroads. Now the work at the tip of the beach that will service both pulp terminals and most of the green terminals is already operational. We came to an agreement [indiscernible]. A lease didn't want this, but this has been resolved. And this is a highly positive point. Another positive point is in the last mile. We have the promise and service to enhance the perimeters, both in the left and right banks. Now we have the money in cash for this work. And this will improve the flow of arrival at terminals. We have a third path, which is for the longer term. That discussion is underway of having an additional highway on the immigrant's highway or an alternative route that would leave from Suzano reaching Cubatao. These are two projects that have surveys underway, but that's for the long term, for the next five years. In the short term, what we will have as novelties. Well, the investments that are being made by port are investment that will use the railroad model for fertilizers and soybean coming from the center west by train and to use the capacity the railroad has that is underused and we're seeking paths to improve the potential capacity of the railroad. The situation is not comfortable. It's far from being comfortable at present at the peak season. Of course, we do experience some jam, but not as we had in the past. Our structure is much better at present. The Port of Santo operates better with 170 million tons compared to how it operated with 90 million tons, thanks to the investments in the railroad that has transferred the cargo. And we have to look upon this very cautiously. We cannot receive that amount of soybeans that will be coming in. So, the solution for the highways is not a solution. The solution lies in railroads. It will allow the port to continue to operate properly in the coming [quinquennium] in the next five years.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Lucas Barbosa from Santander.

[Lucas Barbosa, analyst]

Congratulations for the results. If you allow me two questions. The margins of the Tecon in the first quarter, there was a drop of 60%. It was 63% in the fourth quarter. I know this refers to seasonality, a slight drop in warehousing, and we have 160 basis points of refraction vis-a-vis the fourth quarter. And I understand this because of the training of the newly contracted personnel. When will you see the full leverage because of this work and which will be the EBITDA margin of Tecon when this operational leverage is concluded? And then I will ask a second question.

[Daniel Dorea, executive]

Most of the answer, I think you already have. There is an effect of seasonality that cannot be put aside when we compare the fourth quarter to the first quarter, especially with the fourth quarter as we had in 2023. That is one point. But in the fourth quarter of '23, we also have to look at another effect, which was the following. We had a financial and operational performance at Vila do Conde and Tecon Imbituba that were reasonably atypical. Why were atypical? Imbituba benefited largely from the rainfalls that closed the port of Navegantes and transferred import cargo to Imbituba. So that brought in revenues at the fee at the handling of the key, but also in the warehousing for imports. And this generated expressive results within the business unit of the containers coming from Imbituba and not necessarily from Tecon Santos. That is one point. Another point was Vila do Conde for different reasons. A drug in the Amazon River that transferred [indiscernible] to the Port of Manaus and that ended up being captured by the Port of Vila do Conde. So as part of the revenues of container terminals, we had high-quality revenues coming from Tecon Imbituba and Vila do Conde, nothing that we can neglect. And as a meaning of 200 basis points of margin now seasonality plus this atypical effect once again. And in the first quarter, the expenses do have the cost of personnel because we're recomposing terminals, and you will see a dilution going forward. But we also have the following the payment of CPR on the results. And of course, this burden expenses in the first quarter of '24. We have an [up sum] that will be paid in the first quarter, and this will not be repeated throughout the rest of the quarters of the year. I think this clearly explains that difference in margins. If you distribute these effects, you will see that our margin should be higher and the margin in the third quarter somewhat better. It was a growth of margin improve in the net of the fourth quarter vis-a-vis the first quarter of '24. Now going forward, I think we are reaching a point, especially at Tecon Santos, where month after month, the volume is surpassing that of containers. And when it's surplus of 100,000 containers, the margin, and I'll look at the EBITDA margin of this incremental container. Well, it's very high. It's a margin of 70%, 72% to give you an idea. So this is the effect of operational leverage at Tecon Santos. What we're forecasting going forward, we forecast a level of 100,000 plus containers month after month, which is what we observed in April. Now this is what me is pointing towards, and we haven't even reached the peak season. We have also worked with a [recomposition] and I see room yet for the expansion of margin. I have no doubt whatsoever given the mix that we have, of course. So, this margin should expand because of the effects I have just mentioned.

[Lucas Barbosa, analyst]

Second question for Ricardo. Which will be the rate of retention for services that are ramping up this year? And is there a ramp-up rate for the retention rate by any chance?

[Ricardo dos Buteri, executive]

Hello, Lucas, let's say the following first. Today, we have opportunities and services or routes that want us to accelerate our capacity to accommodate everything in the present day window. If we have that demand, if we have a holdback demand, I would like to say the following. We have more opportunities as soon as we deliver this CapEx and the additional buffer we have had in the last years to increase the numbers now. There will be an accommodation in the ramp-up rates. To services of the five negotiated have a 1-year contract. The others are 2-year contracts. So, our vision is that the regular services that we have now will remain.Now for the services we have contracted for one year we're going to have to verify the need of the ship owners in the second half of the year, to see if we're going to fill in that window with the same regular services, with other regular services we have been unable to accommodate or if we will continue to make a difference of the Port of Santos with a growth of 70% of additional costs growing organically. And Santos Brasil represent 70% of that volume. Now not to speak about the ramp-up rate, but to help you on your analysis. We have mentioned an alteration of ships, a type of service we have from Asia. These ships are called [LATAM MAX]. They already exist, but the ramp up that will exist in terms of volume once we take away tipped up 6,000 TEUs to ship the 14,000 TEUs considering 80%, 85% of consignation, means Lucas that we will have an increase of volume based on regular services, a positive increase for 2025.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Since we have no further questions I will return the floor to Daniel for the final remarks.

[Daniel Dorea, executive]

Well, we would simply like to thank all of you for your attendance, and we will meet at the next earnings results call. Thank you very much, and have a good day.

[Operator]

The Santos Brasil teleconference ends here. We would like to thank all of you for your attendance. Have a good day.