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Cosan S.A. (CSAN)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 7, 2013

$4.18

+4.76%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Cosan’s Third Quarter of the Fiscal Year of 2013 Results Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Marcos Lutz, Cosan’s CEO; Mr. Marcelo Martins, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; and Mr. Guilherme Machado, Investor Relations Manager. We would like to inform you that this event is recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the Company’s presentation. After Cosan’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session for industry analysts. At that time, further instructions will be given. (Operator Instructions) The audio and slide show of this presentation are available through a live webcast at www.cosan.com.br/ir. The slides can also be downloaded from the webcast platform. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements will be made under the Safe Harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Cosan’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 Cosan and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I’ll turn the conference over to Mr. Martins. You may begin your conference.

Marcelo Eduardo Martins

Management

Thanks. Well, thanks everyone for attending our quarterly earnings call. This quarter will be the first quarter when we’ll consolidate or when we have actually consolidated Comgás. We concluded the acquisition of Comgás in the middle of the quarter, so we have only consolidated two months of Comgás results in Cosan’s figures. We had in addition to the consolidation of Comgás, a couple of other non-recurring events and the first one is actually the results of the sale of Cosan Alimentos. We have, as you know well, sold Cosan Alimentos to Camil, and was during this quarter that we actually saw in our results the impact of the gain from the sale of the stake and company to Camil. And we had also during this quarter, a non-recurring result coming from the sale of our participation in certain distribution depots and terminals as part of an agreement we have with other two players in the industry. In the long run, this will be a recurring event, because it happens from time-to-time as a way to adjust the participation of each player in the pool of depots and terminals. But for this specific quarter, it is considered to be non-recurring event. Starting with the figures for Cosan S.A., on a consolidated basis, we had during this quarter relative to the third quarter of the fiscal year of 2012, an increase in net revenues of 33.1% resulting in R$8.4 billion of net revenues during this third quarter of 2013. We had also an increase of 265% in our net income jumping from R$94 million to R$342 million, and also an improvement in the EBITDA margin from 7.8% to 14.2% with an increase of 141% in the actual EBITDA of the company that jumps from R$495 million to R$1,194 million during this specific…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session for investors and analysts. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Mr. Juan Tavarez with Citi. Juan Tavarez – Citi: Hi, good morning, everyone. Just a quick question on fuel distribution, specifically on the sales mix, clearly, it continues to drive really good margins there. Within your gasoline, how much would you attribute of that sale to – of V-Power, to just kind get a sense of also what your target would be of penetration of V-Power within your gasoline sales moving forward? And my second question is regarding your overall CapEx. What’s your kind of expectation now looking forward in terms of CapEx for fiscal 2014?

Marcelo Eduardo Martins

Management

Juan, well, first, in terms of the gasoline mix, V-Power accounted for roughly 28%, so it is actually in the range of 25% to 30% as we have recently predicted. We have, as you know, concluded 100% of the rebranding or almost 100% of the rebranding process and we’re probably reaching a percentage of V-Power penetration that is likely higher than we have recently anticipated. In terms of the CapEx, we’re sticking to the guidance that we have provided to the market. As I know that the number, the CapEx that we had in the third quarter was slightly lower than we have recently anticipated, but there was a certain delay in some recurring CapEx that were supposed to take place in that quarter, which should happen in the fourth quarter. And therefore, we’re keeping the R$2.1 billion to R$2.4 billion guidance that we have provided to the market recently. Juan Tavarez – Citi: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Excuse me. Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Herrera with HSBC. Pedro Herrera – HSBC: Hi, good morning, gentleman. A quick question also in your distribution operation, these are very impressive numbers you have reached. How sustainable is this? Can you get any higher, and if so, what would drive that?

Marcos Marinho Lutz

Analyst

This is Marcos. Obviously, it is – it can actually get higher. There’s a lot of work to be done. But obviously, we are already in a very, let’s say, higher level compared to where we came from and obviously, to industry standards. There are many factors helping on that number. And I would say most of them or all of them are quite sustainable on the medium run and some are very sustainable on the long run. So the one that we keep saying here as a very sustainable part of our strategy is the mix of premium fuel. So, just mentioned here the V-Power. We also have the recently launched Shell Evolux, which is the diesel offer for premium as well. We’ve been very successful as well. It’s still picking up, but it will bring, good margins for the medium run. There is something that I would qualify as something very sustainable now for the medium run at least, which is the mix. I mean the margins are higher in the petroleum products versus the ethanol and having more gasoline versus ethanol on the metrics brings automatically a higher margin. There is another dimension, which is, what we call the non-fuels. This has been also more focused from now on. We have to remember that the team was very focused in rebranding and bringing the whole offer to, let’s say, a level playing field and actually having all our stations in the same brand with the same way to operate, the same offer and all that stuff. This was the primary focus for the first two years. I think now, let’s say, after this low hanging fruit, I mean, what we have to pursue now is really create more critical mass on what we call the non-fuels, which means having a larger result on convenient stores and then credit cards and all those things that we consider as something quite important through the long run health of our margins. But, I mean, summarizing, we believe this is a sustainable number. We still have upsize going forward. Obviously, we have threats, but I think we feel very, let’s say, well positioned to face those threats successfully. Pedro Herrera – HSBC: Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Mr. Luciano Coster with Credit Suisse. Luciano Coster – Credit Suisse: Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the results, and thank you for the call. I have two questions. The first one is can you give a little more color on your expectations for ethanol demand in the domestic market, given the price increases recently at the pump in Brazil? And my second question is considering how you financed the Comgás acquisition, do you have any plans for financing in the market, whether it’d be U.S. dollar or in local currency? Thanks.

Marcelo Eduardo Martins

Management

Well, on the last one, obviously, real-based financing would make sense given that Comgás is, let’s say, a very real-based operation in terms of P&L. And about the ethanol mix, I would say that at the end those changes will, at the end we'll change the price point of the ethanol, not necessarily we'll change the demand. The demand will be on the short-term driven by the production. So obviously, we’ll have a larger production, which means that we will sell more ethanol. But when gasoline prices are little higher, this means that we can actually sell that production at a higher price. So this actually eases a little bit the stressed pricing that we’ve been having and been facing in the last two years on the ethanol side. The industry, the production industry of ethanol is being actually through bad results because of this compression in price, it will be easing up a little bit now. What you have contracted is a 5% higher mix on the gasoline from the anhydrous ethanol. This for sure will show a higher demand on anhydrous prices, also commanding a little larger price on that product as well. But in this case, we will bring demand up and we will drive oil production or even imports to face that demand because this will be a contracted demand. Luciano Coster – Credit Suisse: Thank you and congrats on the results again.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That concludes the question-and-answer session for investors and analysts. I would like to invite Mr. Marcelo Martins to proceed with his closing statement. Please go ahead, sir.

Marcelo Eduardo Martins

Management

Well, I just wanted to thank you again for participating in our call. And to say that, despite the non-recurring demands that we had during this quarter, we managed to deliver very solid results compared to other quarters, compared to the last quarter, compared to the same quarter of last year, which in our opinion is a function of our big focus in improving operational standards of our businesses including the sugar and ethanol business where we have made substantial improvements in terms of reducing operational costs. So, what we believe is that the strategy of consolidating a business portfolio that will bring more stability and cash flow predictability in the future. We have achieved this big, I would say, mark probably by having a good quarter, which will lead us to have a good and a record year of 2013, hopefully. With that, I’d like to end the call. Thanks again and we’ll talk to you guys very soon. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude the Cosan’s audio conference for today. Thank you very much for your participation and have a good day.