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

Q3 2024 Earnings Call· Mon, May 13, 2024

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Transcript

Santiago Donato

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Santiago Donato, Investor Relations Officer of Cresud, and I welcome you to the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2024 Results Conference Call. First of all, I would like to remind you that a replay of this webinar, the presentation and the earnings release will be available on our website at www.cresud.com.ar. After management remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session for analysts and investors. If you want to make a question, please use the chat. 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 will now turn the call over to Mr. Alejandro Elsztain, CEO.

Alejandro Elsztain

CEO

Good afternoon, everybody. We are beginning our conference of the third quarter of 2024. And we can begin in Page #2, looking at the regional campaign progress. We had a little lower than what we expected at the beginning campaign because of some bad conditions on climate and prices. The 2 effects made us to have a little lower total planted area, so -- comparable to last year but a little lower than expected. And we delayed because of climate and not enough water on plantation, and sometimes because of the bad prices with very small margins, so there was a small decrease of hectares comparing year-to-year. Related to climate, Argentina, and mainly humid part of Argentina, received normal or good rainfall comparing last year that we lost almost half of Argentine campaign. So we are going to see a big rebound. We are going to see the numbers. So the agriculture for Argentina mainly was very well affected this year. Related to Brazil and Brasilagro, they are lower productive results because of mainly climate and lower prices. The lower prices, one that was really very affected was sugarcane, affecting a lot the price of the -- of our plantations on sugarcane, mainly Brazil, and some climate in soybeans and other products made very lower results operational comparing to last year numbers. Related to real estate, we show in the first month only 2 transactions in Argentina, 2 small transactions, and they are bringing some gain. But there is a big transaction coming on the fourth quarter related to Chaparral farm in Brazil that is bringing a sale of BRL 365 million, that will be recognized in the fourth quarter, so next quarter ending on 30th of June. We achieved, with all what I said, an accounting loss of ARS…

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Thank you, Alejandro. Good afternoon, everybody. So about our investment in IRSA, remember that we control IRSA with almost 55% of the shares. We have mixed results during the quarter. On the 9-month period, we posted a loss of ARS 111 billion. That was mainly explained by the fair value of our investment properties. Remember that we value shoppings, offices and land bank at fair value. And when we have to give impact to the devaluation and inflation over those properties that remain stable in dollar terms, that generate a loss in pesos term. If we see the 9 months adjusted EBITDA, we posted a gain of ARS 112 billion. That is 9% above the same figures than previous year. But when we open a little more that number between the first 6 months and the last 3 months, we will see that there is a decrease in our EBITDA in the last 3 months that is related to the normalization of the macroeconomic situation of Argentina. After the evaluation and the acceleration of inflation, our tenant sales have been decreasing in real terms, and that is the effect that we see also in the EBITDA. Regarding the tenant sales, as I mentioned, there is an dis-acceleration of consumption in the last months in Argentina. There is some -- real wages were affected, and there is some reduction in consumption. About the occupancy, in all the segments, most offices and hotels remain at very high levels. On the financial side, IRSA concluded buyback programs that acquire around 1.7% of the shares in the market, and also approved a dividend of ARS 55 billion that Cresud already collected our part. About the -- on the right side, the rental EBITDA in dollar terms, we can see that numbers remain stable, $161…

Santiago Donato

Operator

Thank you. Well, now it's the time for the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Yes, there is the first question. If you could speak to how management thinks about the best path forward continue to harvest the discount to value, we are seeing across IRSA and Cresud in the market. Is there a preference between repurchasing shares, dividends and/or continuing mix of both? And if there is a healthy appetite to do so in the future. I don't know, Matt, if it's clear, but I think it's related to the arbitrage between IRSA and Cresud in the last days.

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Yes. We always think our own capital structure and try to be active on that. And we have been doing in the last years, we decided not to be so aggressive on the CapEx side because we saw good opportunities to keep buying back shares or paying dividends, thinking that, that could help in reducing our discount. We are trying with an important discount against our NAV. Preference between shares and dividends. We will do -- always the way that we decide is to analyze liquidity, level of debt and CapEx plan. So it's tough in Argentina to fix a policy because the volatility of Argentina. So sometimes appears opportunity that we try to take advantage. So it's tough to say something that will be fixed in the future. But if we see our behavior in the last years, we pay dividend every time that we could. We buy back shares with the limitations of the regulation, now it's not easy, or that we have to fulfill the regulation and there is a certain amount of shares that we can buy because that is limited by the CMB, the local SEC, about the volume that we can do per day. So it's a little limited by the liquidity that we have in our shares. But it's something that we like and we will keep doing if we see this gap and discount on our shares.

Santiago Donato

Operator

Yes, there is a question related to the amounts of the warrants of Cresud. If we are going to update it after the dividend, the strike price of the warrant.

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

Yes, that, according to the warrant agreement, every time that we approve dividends, we have to give impact to the strike price and the conversion ratio, to give impact of the dividend. Now the idea is that the warrant holders will have the same rights than the shareholders. So if we distribute a dividend, then we have to reduce the price of the strike, so that will happen after tomorrow that we will distribute the dividend.

Santiago Donato

Operator

And additional question on that same question, which is the dollar that you take into account to exercise the option?

Matias Gaivironsky

Management

The dollar is implicit exchange rate between the ADR and the local shares. It's the [indiscernible] exchange rate now, but we are using our own shares to calculate that amount. The idea was always our shares trade with that gap of the blue chip swap. So the idea was not to put -- we did it at the beginning, now not to use the official exchange rate. So to use the exchange rate that is implicit in our shares.

Santiago Donato

Operator

Waiting some minutes more if there is any additional questions. Can use the chat. Okay. If there are no more questions, we conclude the presentation and the Q&A session. And now we'll turn back to Alejandro Elsztain, CEO, for his closing remarks.

Alejandro Elsztain

CEO

We are finishing the next quarter of the year. We are planning a good campaign for next. We are finishing this one, understanding that the margin in the operational won't be as good as expected because of drop of prices. And expecting the yields are going to keep as they are. And we are finishing, and this is going to be finished with majority before the 30th of June. Some minority will remain up to July with the corn. And we are beginning now to budget and to plan next year. And so we -- the combination of these 3 strategies, the operational and increasing, we are thinking on increasing again for next year the size in plantation in the combination of the real estate. Every time the farm is ready, sell it and buying in another region. And the service, the 3 are the same. We are very optimistic on the future of Cresud. So let's see how we finish next year in the 30th of June. We are going to present those numbers in September. But we are optimistic on that. And in the case of IRSA, IRSA is bringing very good numbers, the same. So very good recovery in the financial situation. So all the assets of Cresud are really in a very, very good shape. And a big decrease on the debt that we saw comparing year-to-year. So we are optimistic on the strategy of Cresud. Just to thank you, everybody, for this time. And in the next quarter, we see you then. Bye. Thank you.