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Adecoagro S.A. (AGRO)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 13, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Adecoagro’s Third Quarter 204 Results Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Mariano Bosch, CEO; Mr. Charlie Boero Hughes, CFO; and Mr. Hernan Walker, Investor Relations Manager. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company’s presentation. After the company’s remarks are completed, there will be a question-and-answer section. At that time, further instructions will be given. (Operator instructions) Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Adecoagro’s management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions; industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Adecoagro and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I’ll turn the conference over to Mr. Mariano Bosch, CEO. Mr. Bosch, you may begin your conference.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining our call. In our sugar, ethanol and energy segments I’d like to point out the following. We started this project in 2006 we considered the energy business to be a very important component of our plantation. Consequently, we set the target of reaching 60 kilowatt hours of expected energy per ton of sugarcane crushed. Today I am very happy to say that we have reached these numbers which is one of the highest in the industry. We now feel confident that we can continue improving the efficiencies of our coordination of business and set a new more aggressive target. We are in the expansion project of our class A Mato Grosso do Sul which will add 3 million tons of nominal crushing capacity. We are advancing very well. Firstly, our sugarcane planting has been a very important focus and during the quarter we planted 10,000 hectares driving year-to-date planting to over 29,000 hectares. This will allow us to crush almost full capacity by 2015. Secondly, the construction of a mill is on time and on budget. We are currently in the process of assembling the second boiler, the ethanol distillery, the power substation and we will be ready to begin milling by the start of the next harvest. Finally, we have been improving day-to-day operations which have allowed us to increase milling efficiencies by 10% and crush more grain than last year. All this factors will allow Adecoagro to become one of the most efficient and low cost producers of sugar, ethanol & energy in Brazil. In our Farming and Land Transformation business, we are seeing much better results in the 2013-14 season compared to last year. And this is explained by: 1. A higher operational efficiency in our rice and dairy segment. 2. Include crops yields which have returned to their historical average. 3. Grains generated by our commodity hedge positions. We are now fully focused on the new 2014-15 crop, working on enhancing the performance in our operations and completing the planting plan on schedule. I believe that our businesses are set on a very good path. We are placing a lot of focus on continuing to improve efficiencies in each of our value chains allowing us to become the lowest cost per usage of each of our commodity. Now I would like to ask Charlie to walk you through the main operating and financial highlights of the quarter. Charlie, please go ahead.

Charlie Hughes

Management

Thanks Mariano. Good morning everyone. I would like to walk you through a few slides that will reflect the main operational and financial highlights of the quarter. Let’s turn to Slide 4 where I would like to start off by discussing our sugar, ethanol and energy business. If you take a look of the chart on the left you will see that on a year-to-date basis milling inventory ’14 and ’15 season was 4.9 million tons representing a 6% increase over the same period of the previous year. The increase in milling was driven by enhanced production efficiencies resulting in a 9.3% increase in daily crushing volume, a 22% expansion of our sugarcane plantation and a 6% increase in yields. However, as you may see in the chart on the right, during the first quarter our mills crushed a total of 2.7 million tons of sugarcane, 3% lower than the third quarter of 2013. Let’s turn the next slide to explain this flat decrease in milling. The chart on the top of slide 5 shows monthly rainfalls of our cluster in Mato Grosso do Sul compared to the historical average. Rain in July and September were significantly higher than the historical average. These set of rain generated harvest disruptions since we cannot operate in heavy harvest machinery over wet soil. We will now turn to Slide 6 where I would like to discuss our planting activities for the present quarter. Occupancy in chart on the left, as of September 30, 2014 our sugarcane plantation reached 123,000 hectares representing a 22% growth over the third quarter of 2013. Expanding and renewing our sugarcane plantation continues to be a key strategy to supply our mills with quality raw material at low cost and to increase the productivity and quality of our plantation.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is Thiago Duarte BTG. Please go ahead.

Thiago Duarte - BTG

Analyst

Thank you very much and good afternoon everybody. First simple question actually regarding your commercials strategy on the sugar and ethanol division differently from most of your listed competitors you are not with very high inventories at the end of the quarter, most of your competitors seem to be batting on an improvement of prices going forward towards the end of the crop and you haven’t done the same. So we just wanted to understand the rationale and understand why you have done it this way, which was different. This is the first question.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Thank you Thiago for your question. I am going to pass it over to Marcelo Sanchez our Commercial Director to give you a quick answer on that. Marcelo?

Marcelo Sanchez

Analyst

The reason why we have a different position compared with our competitors is that we do have handled this keeping in mind our financial situation by the end of the year that was the main reason that we did have the inventories in accordance to accomplishment with our financial situation.

Thiago Duarte - BTG

Analyst

Okay, I think I understand that. And the second question is still on the sugar and ethanol division. I mean just more conceptual question in the sense that, you have been showing pretty remarkable improvements as you highlighted in your presentation, yields, TRS levels, I think the efficiency in you sugar and ethanol assets are improving substantially, and moving to next year I believe you are going to have the full cluster operating after your recent expansion. So just if you could go through, just wanted to understand to see what level of profitability considering normal course of things and normal situation and normal weather. What sort of margins and free cash flow you really expect to generate as soon as you reach through capacity in the next year maybe in the year after in the sugar and ethanol cluster and just to get a sense. Thank you.

Charlie Boero Hughes

Analyst

Hi Thiago as you seen us and as you’ve mentioned. We are improving on all this different efficiencies in every place of the chain of our sugar and ethanol business. We are confident that we were since beginning that we are going to be within the low cost producers of sugar ethanol and electricity. So we don’t give guidance in terms of exact numbers of the margins that we are going to be making. But we feel very confident that we are improving quarter by quarter and that’s something we can continue to expect as we reach a full capacity as you’ve been seeing. So we still don’t know where they are leaving this but we know there is still a good room to go.

Thiago Duarte - BTG

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Charlie Boero Hughes

Analyst

And again just continue Marcelo say answer in terms of our hedging positions or our inventories. We did got the prices software in March selling in advance. So we did not sell sugar at 14 or 15 as it was during the quarter that is at Marcelo was talking about.

Thiago Duarte - BTG

Analyst

This is what I saw when I saw your realized prices just wanted to introduce, if there is any fails. Thank you.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Just to add on this I mean we have efforts today we have 95% of the volume hedge for the current crop at about 6 or 17-50 resolution wise if this could have add to that number otherwise the price would have been much lower.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is Giovana Araújo Itaú BBA. Please go ahead. Giovana Araújo - Itaú BBA: Hi good afternoon. My first question about your co-generation efficiency ratio and also about yield. How much do you think you can further improve co-generation efficiency ratio consider the second phase of VVM for next year. And what are your expectations for agriculture yields in the next year?

Mariano Bosch

Management

Hi Giovana in regard of your first question on co-gen and what the capacity. We are reaching this 60 kilowatt hour per ton of crush cane. And we see that we still have room to continue improving there. We are doing some numbers and we have some expectations. But we know for sure that we can obtain at least 10% mark on that number. And I am still optimistic that number can be even 20% more and there are small change and small adjustments that we are improving every day. So between 10% to 20% is something that can we can easily expect. That is in terms of improvement in this important number that is a co-generation per ton being crushed. And then regarding yields, in the sugarcane yields, we are very as you seen Charlie say graph that he was showing the rains that effect in some way they are meeting up -- the milling done during the quarter. But it is excellent for the sugarcane growth. So sugarcane is a very good and we feel we are in a very good situation for our next sugarcane cycle that is in yields for sugarcane and in yields for the rest of the growth I think that you were also including that in your question we are planting right now, we are almost finished with our rice planting, we are in the middle of the soybean planting, we are half on our corn planting. And all of the crops are being planted in excellent conditions and with optimum efficiency. So today we can expect the maximum potential on all the different yields of the different crops we are planting but we are very early in the season to confirm that. Giovana Araújo - Itaú BBA : Okay, on ethanol prices, what are your expectations about prices during the next intercrop period do you think prices will rally in line what we saw last year or do you see --- what kind of upside you are expecting?

Mariano Bosch

Management

I want to let the Marcelo Sanchez our Commercial Director to answer this question your Juliana. Marcelo?

Marcelo Sanchez

Analyst

We are constructive on prices on sugar and then F&B showed production and consumption balance after consecutive surpluses that we had. And given that our view on next year crop size will be Brazil most probably with normal weather repeating current expected production that we had this year. We see prices of ethanol being sent by there is range of action of the [indiscernible] and of course the blend ratio increased to 27%, those are potential upsides for price over next year. Giovana Araújo - Itaú BBA : But as per safer looking for the next intercrop period s in the upcoming months, what kind upside are you expecting for the next month? Intercrop periods?

Mariano Bosch

Management

Operator

Operator

Our next question is Javier Martinez, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Javier Martinez - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Mariano Bosch

Management

Okay, hi, how are you? Regarding the sugarcane crop the estimates I think that’s what the first part of your question. The estimate we are having for this year for 2015 is similar to what we are currently seeing in 2014 and that was out estimate and because of not very good weather in the whole Center South but there are some expansion in the marginal returns, that’s why we estimate a sugarcane production as a whole in line to what happened in this current 2014. And then regarding the second part of your question, on our cash generation and how much cash are we're going to be able to generate regarding what are we going to do? We are optimistic there, but as you've seen in the CapEx, we are still projecting an important CapEx for 2015 that is where we finish our clustering at Mato Grosso do Sul. So the main goal today is to finish the CapEx of the full cluster in 2015. Then regarding from there onward on, what is it that we are going to do? You've seen us working and analyzing each one of the different project that we have a huge pipeline of different projects around the different segments that we currently own. So all of them will be analyzed and are being analyzed and we depend on the return on equity of each one of the projects that we are analyzing. So cash flows will determine which are the best projects that we can invest in and we are looking mainly in the ten countries that we've been looking in the past. This includes analyzing the buyback and the dividend policy.

Javier Martinez - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

So, it wouldn't be opportunistic and depending on the opportunities basically?

Mariano Bosch

Management

Absolutely, as you've seen in the past.

Javier Martinez - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Mariano this increase in the price -- how much of that do you think is market and how much of that is transformation -- non-transformation?

Mariano Bosch

Management

I think that it is all non-transformation. I don't see the market increasing its value and that's what we see in the market, but I don't know exactly on this independent operation because it is independent.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is from Ariane Gil, GBM. Please go ahead.

Ariane Gil - GBM

Analyst

My question is on the land business. I am glad that you guys are engaged in the transformation of several farms in Argentina, and I thank you to achieve higher yields and also for land monetization. So I was wondering if you could give us a little more color on expectation regarding the possibility of land sales in the coming quarters, maybe if there is anything in the pipeline. And also if you could comment a little about what you expect for land prices in Argentina for 2015 that would be great, thank you?

Mariano Bosch

Management

Regarding the first part of your question on the land sales or what can we expect in terms of land sales? I think in 2014, we already done enough or we've done okay, but we are always marketing our farms and this is always opportunistic. So we cannot have an exact number, but as you've seen we made $25 million EBITDA in 2014, we've made a little bit more in 2013 and in line in the past, so looking -- going for the future, I think that we can expect in line with what you've seen in the last 4 years or 5 years and if you take an average of the last 5 years it's something that we can expect for the future in terms of land sales. And regarding land prices and land prices in Argentina, I think that my expectation in terms of land prices for Argentina, I don't see them changing a lot. I think that Argentina hasn't prices of land in Argentina hasn't grow enough or hasn't grow as much as it have grown in Uruguay but I feel in Paraguay, so I think that Argentina will be stable while in the other countries I see prices of land according to this level prices of commodity maintain and you see those other countries volume down.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question is from Ravi Jain, HSBC. Please go ahead.

Ravi Jain - HSBC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. I had a quick follow-up question on the strategy on your sugar, ethanol business, given that there is more, there is a possibility of better sugar prices and even ethanol dynamics improving I think your acceleration of the Greenfield project will be really positive in that sense, but what do you see beyond that? Do you see, if sugar prices get better, do you see further expansion on the Greenfield in that cluster? Or do you see more M&A in that front? Or how do you see sugar ethanol strategy after the expansion of the Greenfield project?

Charlie Boero Hughes

Analyst

Hi Ravi. Good question. As I mentioned in the other areas we are always going to be analyzing and we are always analyzing the possibility of expanding the cluster or doing M&A and all the M&A or most of the M&A that is in the market today we’ve been analyzing. But we’ve never find in attractive by -- in those analysis in order to go forward or to move forward there. So it will clearly depend on their returns that we would be expecting depending on price. So I cannot answer the question today. The answer has been that is better returns to continue increasing our cluster than buying new or buying something already built.

Ravi Jain - HSBC

Analyst

Okay, thank you. And just a quick follow up on that, so as you said you’ll evaluate the situation, but is there scope for further expansion in that cluster I mean, is there scope for more than 2 million tons more in that same cluster or do you have to look at the different place for the Greenfield project?

Mariano Bosch

Management

No, in that same place there is still a lot of room to continue expanding and what in the room is the amount of sugarcane that can be produced in that area. And there is still a lot more sugarcane that can be produced in that area so we think that there is still a lot of room to continue growing there, that you cannot decide the pace of the growth. The pace of the growth will depend on the amount of land available that you will have. So we don’t want to change too much the pace of the growth that we’ve been doing in order to maintain this efficiencies that we’ve been generating.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is Rodrigo Mugaburu, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Rodrigo Mugaburu - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Thank you. Hi, Mariano. I’ve a question I’m sorry if you already talk about that but I joined little bit late. My question is regarding the ethanol, you finally approved the increase on the mix on the blend and gasoline I mean what’s your view on the range of increase on price of the mill. Do you have any view on that I know it’s hard but some kind of guidance how much will be the impact for you?

Charlie Boero Hughes

Analyst

Rodrigo, Marcelo has already explained that, we expect the higher prices for the short term at least and we are constructed in general in the ethanol prices, but our real view is to be the low cost producer, so we are really focusing on the cost of production and we are working on all the efficiencies to improve the cost of production then we manage the carry strategy according to our expectations at each year moment.

Rodrigo Mugaburu - Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Okay. But any sense on -- increase on demand due to the mix increase, any kind of sensitivities in the price --

Charlie Boero Hughes

Analyst

Of course that is positive and if you see that is put in line we saw director increase to the ethanol. So all those things are positive, clear positive and if they happened are welcome and we can expect that 10% to 15% more price if that, all that happens. I’m still not sure that will happen or not.

Operator

Operator

Having no further questions. This concludes the question and answer section. At this time I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Bosh for any closing remarks.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Thank you very much for joining the call. And we look forward to see you again in our upcoming meetings.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today’s presentation. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day.