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Cresud Sociedad Anónima, Comercial, Inmobiliaria, Financiera y Agropecuaria (CRESY)

Q1 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 23, 2012

$11.25

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning everyone. And welcome to Cresud’s First Quarter 2013 Results Conference Call. Today’s live webcast both audio and slideshow maybe accessed through Company’s Investor Relations website at www.cresud.com.ar/ir by clicking the banner teleconference. The following presentation and the earnings release issued last week are also available for download on the company’s website. After management’s remarks there will be a question-and-answer session for analysts and investors. At that time further instruction will be given. (Operator Instructions). You will have also the possibility of sending a question via webcast by clicking on the question to host tool. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded. And that information discussed today may include forward looking statements regarding the company’s financial and operating performance. All projections are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the detailed note in the company’s earnings release regarding forward-looking statements. I would now turn the call over to Mr. Alejandro Elsztain, Chief Executive Officer of Cresud. Please go ahead sir.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you very much. Good morning everybody. We are beginning our conference call of results of 2013 first quarter. If we can go to page number two, we see the main highlights for the first quarter. From fiscal year 2013, the company adopted accounting policies, IFRS, that is changing a lot of our balance sheet and we are going to take a lot of minutes to explain the effect of this new system for our balance sheet. The operating income totaled 180 million pesos, 9% lower than last year due to our 20 million operating loss from the agricultural segment offset by 16% increase in the operating income from the Urban segment. The agricultural segment was affected this year a lot in derivatives. Future sales of this campaign were 30 September very high, and those made a loss [business of] [ph] 36 million pesos loss this year comparing to last year that was a 16 million pesos gain. So, there is a very big strong effect on the agricultural in derivatives that is affecting the agricultural line that is just [hedge] [ph] of the campaign that will change, I’m not very happy because the prices went down. But this effect was in the 30 September and but it’s affecting comparing year to year. But reality is agriculture for first quarter is almost zero, in the IFRS system, agriculture is reflected every time you are producing, and the first quarter is not producing. So, this affect is almost zero, we’re going to talk about just cattle and dairy, mainly the sugarcane business is doing very well. Our net loss of 16.5 million pesos was reflected this quarter, mainly due to higher net financial results; we’ve started the crop season and we expect to plant crops in approximately 207,000. This is the…

Company Representative

Management

We are ready to continue. I will ask you to refresh the presentation. It was mistake, it was uploaded, the press release is there on the webcast. So, right now the presentation is already uploaded. So we can continue, but please refresh the presentation on the system.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

We expect you are ready. And let’s move to page number five, attractive commodity outlook. And here we see evolution on prices of the four main products and something that I explained in the highlights about the effect of derivatives. Prices at September were at the top and derivatives were affecting negative because of that. In the case of soybeans, there was a big drop after that, like 14% from the highest prices of soybeans. And in the rest some dropped too and that is what I explained at the beginning. So, we see that the prices are very firm in all of the products in the agricultural products, not in the beef and milk. In the agricultural commodities because of drought, the combination of drought, first, Argentina, Brazil, South America region, later the United States drought, the combination of both made this increasing prices that made so strong a situation and so tight the situation of demand in commodities. There was [some drop] [ph] and we’re seeing that today’s prices are strong enough, demand is very slim. So, we expect not to see higher losses on the prices than today. There was a big [accommodation] [ph] on prices. So, we’re seeing they are [free enough][ph] to the next part of the campaign. And this is the year that we have the highest hedge position of our history we’re going to show you later with Matias, what percentage of Cresud it’s hedged on the future market. When we talk about cheese and milk, the situation is different. In here the prices are not recovering, there is a small drop in prices of this year. Almost even price in the milk so that is affecting margins for both activities. If we move to page number six, I would introduce Matias Gaivironsky.

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Good morning everyone. So, I apologize for the delay in the presentation. Going to page six, you can see here our hedge position for soybean and corn in the different countries and their consolidated positions. So, you can see that in Argentina, the soybean for this campaign, we already hedged 61%, in Brazil 54%, in Bolivia 14% and in Paraguay 35%, that give us that we have our net consolidated hedge position of 50% at the price of $414 per ton. In the case of the corn, we have 65% of Argentina already hedged in Brazil 44% and consolidated basis we have 47%, at a price of $194 per ton. In we move to page number seven, we can see our evolution of crop area, and that shows that we had an increase of 8% year to year. This year we are planting 221,000 acres, proving the four countries to BrazilAgro and CRESCA in the case of Brazil and Paraguay. And so, the largest still Argentina with 115,000 acres, 71,000 acres Brazil, 24,000 acres Bolivia, and 11,000 acres Paraguay. 57%, of that is soybeans, second in size is corn, now sugarcane became 5% so sugarcane, this is in area not in sales that is much higher. So, sugarcane plantation is growing part of Brazil, we began plantation of sugarcane in Bolivia and that is the affect of this growth. And here we are showing the transformation of the area to agriculture. This year we are expecting to transform 24,600 acres, 7,600 in Argentina, 11,700 in Brazil and 5,300 acres in Paraguay. If we move to page number eight, we can see the yields that we closed last year and this is the graph that shows that the yield was affected by the drought. We can see the yields for both…

David Perednik

Management

Good morning to everybody. We expect to change that we have to make in our financial statements in the first quarter. First, not only it affected the evaluation in the different results but also it has affected in material way, the disclosure that we are making of our different results on also our different assets. And we’re going to explain them right now. With respect to the joint businesses, there is a main change that on the interest in equity in the field of our investments, we have 50% of share not proportionally consolidated any longer, that means that we are not consolidating them in P&L. The company studies and analysis of the business as a whole, really the segment business, are accounting them, and they’re consolidating them. So, you’re going to see in the charts of the financial statement that in the P&L, we no longer have finances, the CRESCA company in Paraguay is consolidated, they are only in the VPP line, proportionally in the – sorry – in the line of company’s joint business denote are not operative. And but the segment business we do consolidate them. Especially in part of biological assets, the biological assets of the company are valued at fair value, and see significant biological growth, the evaluation is based on in-court and after that point you’re seeing discounted cash flow measures. This is also a change because before we only were go not seeing the assets – ask of the moment that we were in harvesting. And now we’re going to recognize the biology – the asset according to biological growth. With respect to the changes in real property, there is new classification in the way that we disclosed this is our financial statement, we have 35 existing properties, separated than property plan and…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). We do have a question from the line of Pedro Richards from Raymond James. Your line is now open. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Hi Alejandro, Matias, David, thanks for the call. I have several questions. My first question is regarding the evaluation of the farms under IFRS, David went through in detail over the presentation. But I wanted to understand what does IFRS state about the evaluation of farms so you showed that you have them under PPE. Does new IFRS rule or would like to use fair-value or market-value or does it allow you to keep them under historical cost? Thanks.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Pedro. Regarding the evaluation of properties, remember that under IFRS you don’t have the obligation, you can choose between keep measuring all the properties at book value or at fair-market value. We decided to value all the properties at book-value and that is mainly to avoid the volatility of different valuation under our financial standard. We prefer to be conservative and only recognize the gains when we sell the farms. So, under IFRS, remember that you have right now three different categories for our assets that are investment properties, property plan and equipment and property for sale. We only in the financial standard, you will find a note of the estimation now our – the rational value of our properties only for the investment properties. That’s – in Cresud are only properties that we have to lease to third parties. So, under the new IFRS you won’t find our estimation of the properties, only for the funds that we lease to third parties. In yields, we have this different – and yields are under investment properties, we have all the shopping centers, the offices under land reserve. So, value for on a consolidated basis of our properties, our investment properties, our estimation that also is conservative, it’s 7 billion pesos that include 6.9 billion pesos of yields and only [75] [ph] million pesos of Cresud. In Cresud we are only – we are only including some farms that we leased to third parties. So, the book value of these 7 billion pesos on our financial statement are 3.4, so you will see all the – will remain with the same valuation that in the past at 3.4 billion pesos. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay. And do you eventually plan to start releasing an independent appraisal on the rest of the farms that you don’t lease, and start showing the market value or that’s not in the plans now?

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

Up to now it’s not in our plan to release the value or third party appreciation. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay. Another thing I wanted to understand from the financial statements, if in the sales and cost of goods sold lines, there are two notes that in the full financial statement that lead to the breakdown of sales and cost of goods sold between real-estate and agro business. And I mean, you have a gross profit of before the fair-value of biological assets only taking into account sales and cost of goods sold you have a gross profit of 119 million pesos. And that’s breaking down from yields or real-estate and agro business. You have gross profit of 241 from real estate and a negative gross profit of 121 from agro business. Can you explain – I want to understand the reason why the sale – I mean the gross profit from sales of crop production that has already been harvested before the fair value of biological assets, gives a loss? Can you clear on that?

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

Pedro, we will see the details, probably we can answer you later, and if other investors and analysts have the same question, you can send me – or you can send me an e-mail and I will forward the answer for everyone. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Perfect, and now to very specific questions. Regarding the increasing planted area, that in the presentation you showed that you were increasing planted area to – from 207,000 acres last year to 221,000 acres. And in the press release I think it was expected planting area of 207,000 acres, what’s the difference?

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

The difference is, farms of Cresud rented to third parties. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay, excellent. And finally, regarding the hedging prices you disclosed here in the presentation you mentioned that you have – the soybean production you have already hedged 50% at a price of $414 per ton?

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Yes. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Is that a price after export taxes $414 per ton?

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

I think this includes the – each country, so this is the average for the price for Argentina, we taxed the rest without. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay. So, in the case of Argentina, this price is after taxes?

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Yeah, exactly, net price we close. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay, the same for the 195 for corn?

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

184 for the corn. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

194. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay. And one final question, regarding the crop yields for fiscal year 2013, the year we are commencing do you expect crop yields to be similar to those last year, fiscal year 2010 or fiscal year 2011, see in the slide in the presentation of crop yields?

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

So, we are now expecting not to have a drought. We plan for having a normal year. And if the situation is normal, but it is too early to explain but really we expect a normal year, the year before was a normal year. So, last year was not. Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

…we expect to have. And apart of that, remember that a big portion of our assets are maturing farms. So, apart of normal year you have maturity of farms like in Brazil or North of Argentina or Paraguay that every year, the yield increases a part of a normal year more than a mature like (inaudible) that it’s more mature. So, you recover to the normal yields when you are maturing land you’re increasing into the (inaudible). Pedro Richards – Raymond James: Okay, thank you Alejandro. Thanks for the color.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). There are no questions at this time. So this does conclude the question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Alejandro Elsztain for any closing remarks.

Alejandro Elsztain

Chief Executive Officer

So, thank you very much everybody. We are going to close. We are optimistic because we are increasing area, we have good awareness. We come with a very good normal and good area or planted area for all the region. Good prices, a lot of hedge and a big development of new land to next year. So on short, like always we do – some sale of one asset that reflects very good hidden value that our portfolio has. So we are very optimistic for next quarters. So see you at the end of this year. So thank you very much and have a very good Thanksgiving Day. Bye.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today’s presentation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And have a nice day.