Earnings Labs

Corporación América Airports S.A. (CAAP)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 11, 2019

$24.36

-2.64%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Corporación América Airports' fourth quarter 2018 earnings call. A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and is available in the Investors section of Corporación América Airports Investor Relations website at http://investors.corporacionamericaairports.com. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. And at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Gimena Albanesi of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Gimena Albanesi

Investor Relations

Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. Speaking during today's call will be Martín Eurnekian, our Chief Executive Officer and Raul Francos, our Chief Financial Officer. Also with us today is Jorge Arruda, Finance and M&A Manager. All will be available for the Q&A session. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Safe Harbor statements. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and reconcilings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. I would also like to remind you that following the recent categorization of Argentina as a highly inflationary economy in accordance with IFRS commencing July 2018, we began applying IFRS rule IAS 29. This rule applies retroactively starting January 1, 2018. For comparison purposes, in addition to presenting as reported results, we are also disclosing the isolated impact of the adoption of Hyperinflation Accounting in Argentina and our results excluding rule IAS 29. Additional information in connection with the application of rule IAS 29 can be found in our earnings report. Now that for comparison purposes and a better understanding of our underlying performance in our presentation today, we will be discussing results excluding Hyperinflation Accounting in Argentina. Now, let me turn the call over to our CEO, Martín Eurnekian. Martín Eurnekian: Thank you Gimena. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. It's a pleasure to welcome you to Corporación América Airports' fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. I will begin my presentation with a discussion of the highlights of the quarter and then Raul will take you through our financial results. Afterwards, I will provide an update on our key business…

Raul Francos

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Martín. Good day everyone. As Gimena noted at the beginning of our presentation, for a better understanding of our performance we will discuss our results excluding the impact of hyperinflation in Argentina. Note, however, that in the fourth quarter 2018, the application of IAS 29 resulted in a positive impact in reported numbers when compared to the previous accounting given that the indexation effect exceeded the translation impact from using the closing exchange rate as opposed to using the average exchange rate for the reporting period. Starting with the topline on slide five. Total revenue declined close to 13% year-on-year to nearly $363 million and 9% when also excluding construction revenues. Consolidated revenues were impacted by the mix shift from international to domestic traffic as well as lower travel demand in Argentina. Revenues were also affected by the FX translation impact from the strong currency depreciation of both the Argentine Peso and the Brazilian Real. Aeronautical revenue declined 7%, mainly due to weaker international traffic in Argentina and currency depreciation in Brazil. By contrast, we are very pleased with the results we are seeing in Ecuador and Armenia posting another quarter of revenue growth. Finally, in Italy, traffic increase is not entirely reflected in the revenue line, given that again this quarter marketing support expenses are reduced from revenues while in the year ago quarter they were included in SG&A. Commercial revenue declined 12.4% year-on-year, mainly reflecting lower demand in Argentina and the FX translation impact in both Argentina and Brazil. In local currency, commercial revenues in Brazil increased 15%, benefiting from higher VIP lounge and other passenger revenues together with higher cargo volume. In Italy, we initiated to enhance our service offering coupled with a higher traffic growth are showing positive results, while Armenia continued to perform…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our first question today comes from Roberto Otero with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Pedro Mariani

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Hi gentlemen. Actually, this is Pedro here. Thanks for taking my question. I have one quick question from our side and have more follow-ups on AA2000. Could you give us any update on the ongoing negotiation with the government regarding the concession's 10 years extension? I mean, in your view, how should the upcoming election in part impact your renegotiation, right? And if you could give us a sense of timing, should we expect any final terms happening still in 2019? Or maybe it will be more conservative to assume this happening all in 2020 onwards? That's my question. Thanks. Martín Eurnekian: Hello. This is Martín and again thank you for your question. It would be difficult for me to give you an idea on when the government will be ready. We are engaging with them as often as possible to understand when can we officially launch a negotiation. To be honest, the fact that we have entered the election mode in Argentina has, at least in our perception, shifted the administration's priorities in terms of what they need to achieve because, as you probably understand, everybody goes into election mode once we start getting closer to the primaries and presidential elections. So this is the feel that I can give you. Although not impossible to do a negotiation this year, I think that the fact that everybody is focusing on elections puts a little bit of strain in that possibility of being able to really close before the end of the year.

Pedro Mariani

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

All right, Martín. Thanks for responding my question.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead with your question.

Mark Zhang

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead with your question

Hi. Good morning guys. This is Mark on for Ian. Thanks for taking our question. So if you guys could provide a little bit more detail on sort of the time line of the capital spend particularly at AA2000 would be much appreciated? So just a couple, can you give us, I guess like potentially give us a sense of when Ezeiza will open in 2019? Or just like first half or second half event? And what's sort of the time line on the Aeroparque expansion, that will be much appreciated? Thank you. Martín Eurnekian: Okay. We have an inauguration set, Mark, for this year, Ezeiza being the main one. As of today, the set date for inauguration of the new terminal in Ezeiza is the end of September. But that will be fine-tuned with the group that is doing the actual CapEx and the government as well. For the rest, we have a calendar for opening of the works that we have been doing so far and we can definitely provide that to you, but it will be publicly announced each time we decide on exact date for the openings that we have this year.

Mark Zhang

Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead with your question

Okay. Terrific. That's very helpful. Okay. Great. Thank you guys very much.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our next question comes from Bruno Amorim with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Bruno Amorim

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Yes. Hi. Good morning. I have two questions. So the first one is, out of the additional $1 billion in CapEx expected to be included in the concession agreement in Argentina, how much have you already done so far? And also, has the regulator recognized or authorized this investment? Or is it something to be discussed only when the additional $1 billion is approved by the regulator? And the second question is, when should we expect to see the next tariff revision in Argentina? Is this negotiation tied with the discussion around concession renewal and additional investments for $1 billion? Or are those separate discussions? Could we see tariffs being adjusted before the final decision on the extension? So those are my two questions, please. Martín Eurnekian: Thank you. First, the two things are totally separate. According to our current contract, the tariff revision should be done yearly. The regulator is a little bit late. As far as we know and for the interaction we have, they are getting ready to finish the exercise to be able to publish it. It's not a negotiation. They have to run the numbers and do the adjustments. So it's not linked to any negotiation or anything else whatsoever. Regarding the CapEx question, as the discussion we are having end of 2018, we were either at the number agreed in the concession contract in terms of total CapEx for the concession or a little bit or slightly beyond that number. So for 2018, that is a fact. For 2019 is where we are going beyond that number. But everything we do is approved by the regulator and taken into account into the regulatory [accounting] [ph] in the concession contract.

Bruno Amorim

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And this will conclude our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Martín Eurnekian for any closing remarks. Martín Eurnekian: Well, thank you very much for joining us today. We really appreciate your interest in our company. We look forward to meeting more of you over the coming months and providing financial and business updates in the next quarter. In the meantime, the team remains available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you again and enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.