Good morning, everyone. I'm Santiago Donato, investor relations officer of Cresud. I welcome you to the second quarter 2025 results conference call. First of all, I would like to remind you that the 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 risk and uncertainties. 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 Alejandro Elsztain, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Santi. Good morning, everybody. We are beginning on page number two, the main events for the second quarter 2025. We have this year, 2025, a very big regional campaign. We increased, comparing last year, planted area 9%, and we have our record in size in total agriculture within the combination of the four countries leased and owned. We have this year good climate conditions in general in the region. There is slightly an increase in commodity price on the last quarter, mainly in Argentina because of some reasons in Argentina that I will explain later. From other side, some input cost reductions, mainly in Brazil because of the devaluation of the real.
During January, there was a small lack in the rain, finally now in February, we are receiving some rain, and we are expecting a normal campaign for our crops in Argentina too. Related to the crop export tax reduction, there was a big measure done by the government, that decreased from 33%- 26%, the soybeans, and the corn and wheat to from 12%- 9.5%. This is more or less a 5% increase in the prices for farmers, depending what the margins the farmers are receiving because the exporters are taking part of that profit too. Finally, it's a benefit that is mainly for Argentina. It's just for Argentina.
Helping Argentine farmers in the drop of prices that we have received last 12 months comparing to higher price that we had in the past. Related to BrasilAgro, we have very good productive results, and the prospects for the campaign are very good. Soybean is beginning to harvest, and we are seeing very good yields. They are sustained price. The inputs are going down because of that devaluation. Related to real estate, we have accumulated up to now just Los Pozos sale and Alto Taquari, but that was in the first quarter. In the second, there are not more sales, but we are seeing a movement, and we are expecting for next half year, some more sales on the assets on the region. Related dividend distribution, we've distributed ARS 45 billion in November. That represents close to 7% of dividend yield.
We can move now to page 3. Here we see our evolution. That jump of 9% year-to-year, achieving more than 300,000 hectares in the combination of the four countries, being Argentina and Brazil the main, finally, Paraguay and Bolivia smaller. Here we see soybean representing half of total planted area, 23% corn, 9% sugarcane. Today, the main, in Brazil, the main two are sugarcane and soybean. In Argentina, the main two are soybean and corn, main two products. This is the breakdown for the region. We can move now to next page. Now I will give the word to Mr. Matías Gaivironsky.
Thanks, Alejandro. Good morning, everyone. In this page, we can see the evolution of commodity prices. As we show every quarter, remember, we come from the 2024 campaign that was marked by the down pressure on the international commodity prices. We have seen at the very beginning of 2025, the same trend, low prices level. In the last quarter, we have seen a slight recovery, both in corn and in soybean prices in Chicago. Soybean are about 5% and corn 7%. It's a good news. Regarding input cost, they continue to adjust as they were lagging behind prices. Alejandro will be back to talk about the taxes.
Here we showed you in page five, the evolution on taxes and exports for the two main products of Argentina that we produce, they are soybean and corn. We see that from the 1982 up to now, so more than 40 years, there were taxes on exports. I would say that the average was at the 30 something. Now there was an announce of decrease from 33- 26, but that was announced up to the 30 of June of 2025. This is pushing farmers to sell some of what they retained from the crop. In the case of corn, from 12-nine and a half. Big majority of the history of the last 40 years, we were taxing our exports.
Our existing President Milei said he will decrease or make them disappear. At the time, he will have always surpassing having a surplus on the spending on the government. Now he gave some, but he announced up to the 13th of June. The market is not showing an increase again, the market is reflecting that there was an expectation that maybe can stay that on the prices and the government will try to stay. Up to now, they announced formally up to the 13th of June. The first of July, they would rebound to 33. From other side, the rest of the commodities, the specialties, rice, cotton, and all the small dairy, all the small products of Argentina, they went to zero, and that was permanent.
They gave a good measure. Farmers are happy. That measure gave us some air, gave us, like, a 5% to prices, and this is a good sample of what we are expecting from the government. We are not seeing the rebound on the prices, but we are seeing a country and a government intending to decrease taxes. And in the case of farmers, taxes on exports, that is the main taking from the revenue. Saying that, I will give you Diego again, the word about the climate of the region.
The climate condition and sowing progress. In this page, we can see the regional weather condition and sowing after 2024 campaign, where we experienced lower yields and production both in Argentina and Brazil due to the lack of rain. 2025 campaign is developing with the weather condition, the good weather condition is much better. Like for example, Brazil has any problem of rain in the first semester in the areas and the region where it operates. However, talking about Argentina, the lack of rain in January has been noted, which if it persists could impact the main crops' yields. We hope to see a good rainfall the next weeks. Today it's raining here in Buenos Aires, and this month we expect continuing rain. Regarding the soybean progress, we have planted 100% the soybean in the area, in the region.
The good level of rainfall at the beginning allowed for fine and optimal sowing of summer crops. Regarding crop, corn, we have 80%, with Brazil around 30%. Corn, wheat or safrinha is unnormal for this time of the year, the month. Taking about the harvest, the winter crops, in which we have completed the harvest in Argentina with its almost double size than the last year. We sow and we harvest like 13,000 hectares of wheat. This is almost 95% increase compared to the previous campaign. Similar yields, little lower, but in term of the tons, the general production was 65% above the last year, reaching 45,000 tons. Ending in the page number, seven, the cattle activity in Argentina. Regarding, we have seen the very high prices sustained.
The prices had a significant improvement in the last year. The trend that we experienced last year remained the same. We increased a little bit size of herds, reaching almost 60,000 herds in Argentina. The production is increasing. We are expecting to have a higher with similar margins. I will back Alejandro to talk about FyO.
Related to FyO, our service agricultural company, here we see the evolution on tons the company is trading from the last 10 years, from $3 million- $7 million surpassing this year. We're expecting to surpass the $7 millions if the campaign stays as it is. EBITDA evolution to $25 million per year. This company became very relevant in the market, not only in servicing outputs, but inputs. We sell, through FyO, fertilizers and herbicides and other inputs for farmers. That company became very relevant with more than 400 employees working in Argentina and now developing this main service in Brazil through Biond Agro, another company. With the combination of two, that company is growing a lot, too. We combine the three businesses, the real estate, the operational, and the service company.
Saying that, now I will introduce Matías Gaivironsky, that will talk about our investment in IRSA, where Cresud owns 56% of the stake.
Thank you, Alejandro. Good morning, everybody. To review the main events of Irsa during the quarter, well, first, we saw a loss of ARS 40.9 billion that is mainly related to a non-cash effect about our the fair value of the investment properties. I will explain a little deeper. We saw during the quarter, higher occupancy and sales recovery in our malls activity. We saw a 21.4% increase on tenant sales against the previous quarter. Still below the last year. When we compare with the same quarter of the last year, we still see a decrease of 8.5%, but we expect during the next quarter to start showing positive numbers compared with the previous year. About the office portfolio, we reached 100% occupancy, we are happy with that.
About the hotels activity, we saw a drop during the quarter, related to the decrease in revenues and occupancy because of the new environment, in Argentina and, the new exchange rate. We are receiving less tourism than the previous year. About the malls as well, during the quarter, we finished acquisition of a new mall, Terrazas de Mayo, that is located in Greater Buenos Aires. With this acquisition, we are increasing our mall portfolio in terms of GLA, gross leasable area, of around 10%. Also, during the quarter, we finished the first two plot sales in Rambla del Plata project. This is a major milestone for the company after receiving the approvals and after the signing the master plan of the project.
We started the commercialization and we already sold two plots, so we signed the two agreements and we are working in around 10 different barter agreements with different developers to sign in the coming months. About the dividends of IRSA. Distributed dividends in November or of around 8% dividend yield and also 3.6% in treasury shares. When we see the EBITDA in dollar terms, the rental EBITDA, we see a good trend. Such the decline this year compared with the previous year is related to the hotel activity. The malls and the offices remain stable. Going to the next page. About the financial results. Well, to compare with the previous year, first we need to understand what happened with the effects on inflation.
You remember that during the last year, we had a big jump in the big devaluation of the peso from ARS 350- ARS 800. That had an impact at that moment on our holding on the stock of grains, and also was a negative impact about our debt that we will see in the coming slides. This year the macroeconomic situation of Argentina is much more stable. Inflation went down from 107% last year to 21%. The devaluation was only 13%, so we have an appreciation of the peso of 7%. About the blue chip swap, the dólar MEP, we also see a big reduction in the gap between the parallel market and the official exchange rate.
Going to the next page, to see the operational results first in the agribusiness and the farming activity. You know that this semester is not the most relevant semester of the campaign. We will have the most of the results coming in the next two quarters. When we analyze what happened this semester, we see a drop in some of the numbers. First, the positive numbers came from the farmland sales. As Alejandro mentioned, we haven't sold this quarter any properties, but we sold during the first quarter. Compared with the previous year, we are having better numbers. About FyO. Here is not the best picture because we are comparing on the operational results, and some of the results of FyO are recognized in the line of financial results.
Here we see a big drop from ARS 17 billion last year to a negative numbers of ARS 16 billion. When we see the final line in the net income, we see comparable numbers with the previous year. About the farming activity, we see here a drop in the grain activity. This is basically related to the holding results related to our stock. We have lower prices in grains compared with the previous year. Also the evolution during the quarter of prices in peso term was lower than inflation. We are recognizing negative numbers because of our stock and also the remaining results of the previous campaign that are bringing some negative numbers because of the drop in prices. About the wheat harvest.
We have some reduction compared with the previous year related to reduction in yields and also in prices. About the sugarcane activity, that is mainly in Brazil, we have very positive numbers. We have basically better prices than previous year. The cattle activity also, we have an improvement in kilograms produced and also in prices. Those are the main drivers of the drop on the farming activity. Going to next page. Here on the right side, we have the main explanation of why we are showing losses, both in IRSA and at Cresud levels. Basically, we are having negative numbers in the valuation of our investment properties. Last year, we can see here that was a big jump in valuation because of the valuation of the peso.
In pesos term, we recognize very positive numbers. This year, since prices remain stable in dollar terms and the blue-chip swap reduced, and also we have an appreciation of the peso, we are recognizing losses. When we see the numbers in dollar terms, both in offices and land bank remain stable. In shopping malls, we posted a improvement in valuations of around $120 million. Next page. Finally, regarding the net financial results, also in the left part, you can see that last year we have negative numbers because based mainly because of the devaluation that affected all our dollar-denominated debt. This year we have an appreciation of the peso, we are recognizing gains about that.
Also we have positive numbers on the fair value of our assets, financial assets that are basically our liquidity. With all those drivers, we are finishing the net result of the semester with negative numbers of ARS 61.5 billion. Attributable to a controlling interest is ARS 64.4 billion, compared with a gain of ARS 266 billion last year. About our debt, there was no major news during the quarter. The debt remained stable, $323 million during the end of December. It was a reduction in the debt compared with the previous year, sorry. This is after paying the dividend of Cresud as well. With this, we finish the formal presentation.
We open the line for any question that you can have.
We've start the Q&A session. If you have a question, please use the chat. We will take the questions in the order we receive them. Here we have some questions in the chat. Could you be able to give shareholders any kind of guide for what the second half capital allocation will look like between acquisitions, CapEx, dividends, and buybacks? I was surprised there wasn't another repurchase authorization in such a volatile market.
There was, no? There was. Recently, we were repurchasing some shares of Cresud, close to a little less than 1%, that was approved recently, a few months ago, and was done before the end of the year. Yes, was done a small repurchase. Related to purchases and sales and CapEx, the company, each Cresud, it's trying to find some purchases of land, at the same time selling some assets that they are mature. We are in the process of that. We are expecting to do some of that in the second semester of the company. Related to the CapEx of the company, we keep doing the normal CapEx of the company. That is normally it's like $5 million-$6 million per year. This is the normal size of Cresud by year.
Yeah, we have other questions, that are more macro. If you can walk us through the shifting regulatory environment regarding conversion of your land bank assets to productive land. I imagine this is related to some provinces, that they are reviewing this regulatory laws, no? Environment law.
Yes. mainly the province of Salta is speaking about that, is changing regulation on the areas that can be developed. Sounds like the new government is intending to develop more land in Argentina than the opposite. Maybe that could be affecting our two projects in Anta and Los Pozos. Today, we are not so sure because it's not finished, it's not done. Today, we are not in big process of developing land. What the government is intending probably will increase the surface of Argentina, mainly for the northern areas of Argentina, northwest of Argentina.
Good. Here a question regarding the upcoming harvest that is expected to be largest harvest and better. Do you expect numbers to be to join that direction, to be more positive than previous campaign?
Yes. Yes, we expect that because the
In general, what we do related to each year is we plant and we forecast related to price, related to cost, related to yields, and related to hectares planted. This year, I would say, is very normal related to prices. It's positive because there is not a negative price to the beginning of the campaign. It's a little positive because of Argentinian effect, mainly. Related to cost, it's not affecting neither. The yields sounds, but it's too early to speak because today, in February, it's not done, but sounds like it's a normal year to the region. In hectares, we planted majority what we expected. Big majority. Close to there is a small, very small discount on the hectares planted. Yes, we are expecting a better, much better operational business than the last year. Yes.
Let me add something about some accounting treatments that sometimes when we measure in our management presentations, and internally we tend to measure results in dollar terms, no? When we show numbers on our financial statement, we have to do it in pesos, and in pesos term, it's adjusted by inflation. Sometimes we have positive numbers in dollar terms, but when you convert that in real pesos, sometimes turn to negative, no? For instance, our holding results that if you have an stock of grains and that grains didn't improve as much as the inflation, then you have to recognize a negative number. Sometimes our financials are not the best proxy or the best way to see the real performance.
Good.
Yeah, we have some additional questions. How is a recently completed new free trade deal with Europe going to affect your crops meat exports? How is the new European Union tariff agreement going to affect you? If you can give, Alejandro, perhaps some color on how is this new trade with Europe. Pardon me, with United States or Europe, I imagine?
Europe.
Europe, all right.
This is recently signed, it's going to affect... In the case of beef, it's going to increase the quota of beef exports to Europe, that will be a benefit for Argentinian and South American beef. Will bring some competition of European products to Argentina. That will make us to prepare better products and more efficient industrial things in Argentina. In general, it's a positive measure for Argentinian farmers, what was finally signed between European Union and South America, Mercosur.
I think we have question regarding Agrofy. If you can give some color, how is the business performing?
Less taxes on many things like soybeans and other things. It's going to benefit for farmers for sure. It's was very excited by the farmers of Europe, because benefits South American farmers.
More question about Agrofy.
What it was, sorry?
Last question regarding Agrofy, if we can give some color on how is the business performing, or the expectations for this year?
Agrofy is a company that is reducing a lot its number of employees. The company began spending much more money thinking that sales would be much higher. The main companies still are not decided to show their products and prices on the web. The marketplace is beginning to work mainly in machinery and all kind of supplementary things for the farmers, not still for the main inputs as seed, herbicides, fertilizers, oil crops. That makes us to reduce our staff. Today, the staff is closer to breakeven. The company has cash on the pockets, and now is thinking how to achieve that to the breakeven, 'cause now it's very close. The company was spending $10 million-$20 million per year.
Now it's spending less than $2 million of burn rate and has the money, close to the money to achieve that, the positive. The company is in a much better position than it was, understanding that the business, the industry, is delaying, as much as possible, the marketplace for agriculture. Agrofy is still the leader, and now with the sales of that input for farmers, the, like, tools or tractors or all kind of machinery that is not a commodity for the farmer, it's making much higher returns. We are expecting to put the company, in one year and some, in a breakeven position.
Great. Last question. Your view on the political side, under President Milei with the upcoming congressional elections, if you are positive on his Milei winning and getting more power in the Congress?
Today, the situation and his, the people in favor of him is huge. Today, the majority of Argentina is liking what Milei is bringing. First of all, the decrease on inflation was the main. Macroeconomy is working. Some good effects are coming to the country. Today, if the election would be today, I don't have any doubt. This year, they are expecting a much better situation related to Congress. Today, they are running the country with a very small percentage of the Congress, no? Very small in Congress, the Senate and the Deputies. We think that Milei is going to strength a lot during this year, and he's going to keep doing what he was doing. More measures, deregulating, helping imports.
Probably, I think he's going to unify the currencies, and it's going to, I think, keep decreasing the cost of the capital of Argentina. We see the companies now are beginning to. Cresud and IRSA were using those tools, having bonds, and today the market is opening for long-term debt for Argentina. Yes, we think he's going to have much more support on the Congress and more, much more measures on the government. If that is the last question, I would thank everybody. Because of the presentation, half a year for Cresud is not very relevant. The more are the third and the fourth, March and June, and we expect to keep having the three businesses very well run and very actively. I hope to show more sales and buys in the two main countries that are Argentina and Brazil.
The related to the farming, the summer is our main activity, where soybean and corn, they are coming. I'm very optimistic on the year. Just to thank you, everybody, and have a very good day. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.