Morning everyone. I'm Santiago Donato, Investor Relations Officer of Cresud, and I welcome you to the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 results conference call. First of all, I would like to remind you that both audio and slideshow may be accessed through company's investor relations website at www.cresud.com.ar by clicking on the banner Webcast link. The following presentation and the earnings release are also available for download on the company website. 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, 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.
We cannot hear you. I don't know if you are mute.
Good morning, everybody.
Now, yeah.
We are now beginning the main highlights for our second quarter 2024. We can begin with the regional campaign progress. This is a campaign that is replicating the size of last year. The commodities have dropped a lot. We are going to see later in between the soybeans, the corn, and the ethanol are affecting our results. On the other side, we are expecting higher yields and margins, mainly in Argentina, because last year dropped because of the drought. This year, a normal El Niño campaign. Related to that, the better climate conditions were at the beginning of the campaign. There was a month with a lack of rains. These days, yesterday, today, it's raining again. This is recovering the moisture of the soil.
We had a very normal and good winter campaign, and we are expecting a normal and better, much better for last year, but more than normal year related to soybean and corn. About BrasilAgro, this year, we have lower productive results and the climate affecting them. It's decreasing some of the yields. Not dramatically, but some of the yields. Mainly, the effect is the lower valuation of the crops and the combination of that big drop on the prices and increase on the basis of the prices of Brazil related to Chicago. This is a big discount this year, is affecting really the margins of the main ranks of Brazil. Related to farm sales, we, in this say six months, we had two sales in Argentina.
Still now, not in the rest of the region, we are optimistic on that, too. In these two are Los Pozos and El Tigre. We sold two small pieces of two big farms, and we are going to explain you later. These are some examples of good transactions on good internal rates of returns of farms in Argentina. Some more activity in the country are related to the accounting results. This year brings ARS 122,000 million gain. This is a combination of better agriculture and better urban. Better agriculture because of this year, some effects on the crops, a good winter, better tenants, the holding with the crops that we have, mainly related to maize that brought us good results and the sales of these two farms.
This effect is bringing a much better year related to agro and the other side, the urban, good operational and better fair value on investment properties. Matías will explain in more details later. Related to the dividend distribution, finally, we had approved and took us some time, but finally, a few weeks ago, a few days ago, we were ready to pay, approved by all the organizations, and finally, we were able to pay the dividend and the shares that we paid, approved in October. Saying that, let's move to next page. Here we can see the evolution of the exchange rate and look at what happened after the entry of Milei to government. We can see there was a big change.
The ARS 350 or ARS 360 per dollar went directly to the ARS 800 level, and that big change coming to the farmers made the really big change on the margins of the year. When you see that, the farmers receive almost all in the official, but the 20% in the Contado con Liquidación or MEP. The combination of the two makes the farmer was from ARS 350 in the end of Massa, he was at ARS 500 and went to close to ARS 900 per dollar. This is the big change on margins on farmers receiving big portion of that evaluation. This is dilution on cost and increasing on the revenues.
Farmer situation between the climate and this mainly, main rule that came to government after a few days of government made a big change on Argentina's situation. The gap today of the blue chip and the official is much smaller. There were times of 1 to 3. Now it's 1 to 1.50. That big difference is making farmers of Argentina. To give you an example, in the moment of $500 per ton of soybeans, Argentine farmers were receiving in the normal dollar in the free dollar, they were receiving $170 or $200. Look at what is today. It is because of this situation, is much better comparing the taxes on exports were not changed. The government tried to change, but it's not changing still.
The big change of the official dollar is really making a much better environment for farmers in Argentina. Here we can see the evolution on prices and if you want Diego to talk about that. Please explain the drop of these days.
Yes. Thanks, Alejandro. Morning, everybody. Well, on the slide two, we can see the evolution of commodity prices. After the peak which, after pandemic, soybean and corn international prices have experienced a correction that was accelerated in the last quarter due to the growth in supply from South America. The market is waiting for the demand to be reactivated. Price of soybean decrease approximately 18% since July 2023, and corn is down 12%. Regarding input costs, they are still at high levels, we expect that adjust in line with the grain prices. Next page. In this page, we show the expected planted area in the region. We expect to plant 282,000 hectares.
This is a bit less than we expect at the beginning of the campaign, mainly Brazil with the weather. The size of the campaign will be similar to the previous campaign. Regarding crop breakdown, we have diversified crop mix, but we produce mainly soybean and corn that account from approximately 70% of our planted surface. Next page. Here in this page, we can see the climate conditions for the region on the showing progress. Regional weather condition are better than the previous campaign, mainly in Argentina. Remember the historical worst drought we had in the past. Our expectation are of the good or regular campaign, despite the beginning of the campaign with the lack of rain, with the impact on the winter crop production.
Last week, we received a hot wave observed in La Moza, the temperature. Still that is beginning affected by the El Niño, with impact mainly in Matopiba region. Regarding of the sowing progress, it's almost completed in Argentina and advanced in the whole region. Soybean, 87% progress, and the corn, 74%, with 100% the winter crop. For Argentina corn too, close to 90%. Alejandro, if we want to continue with the real estate business.
Related to the fraction of Los Pozos farm, we had the chance of selling a small portion of 4,200 hectares of land. That was done at $540 per hectare. What we paid in 1995, $10. The CapEx invested on that was $25. The profit in the investment, it's 14 times. That represents an internal rate of return of dollars of 14% from 1995 to now, to 2024. This is a small portion. We have a remaining surface of 235,000 hectares, and we made an accounting gain of ARS 722 million in this quarter.
This is the kind of transformation from $10 to $500, $1,000, and we expect the developed to be at thousands, the agriculture and the cattle area. Imagine what is the kind of transformation from $10 to $1,000 or a few thousand dollars per hectare. This is the not developed area where we decided to sell to, directly to other people that they are ready to do, they are going to probably to develop. This is an area that is permitted to develop. If we move to next page. Here we did, I think one of the best transactions on Cresud story. We bought long time ago in, I think 2000 and 2006, or I don't remember exactly, but I think.
Three.
Three. 20 years ago, we bought a piece of land of 8,400 hectares, and we began to sell. This is the first small sell on that big transaction. We have a big remaining 7,800 hectares. The 500 hectares we sold for $7,500 per hectare. We bought in 2003, in $1,100 per hectare, and we invested through all the history $350. Again, a profit of 5 x to the investment. Accounting gain of ARS 2,600 million. An internal rate of return of 16% in dollars for these, like, 20 years, 21. At the same time, we had the chance of buying at a 60 km distance.
We sold 500, but we bought for the same farmer in another 60 km distance, to be run by the same manager, 1,250 hectares for close to the same price of the 500. We paid for that $4.5 million. A big, small difference, so $700,000 and a price per hectare of 3,600, close to half. This is to increase the size of the farm without using liquidity. The margin that the new farm is more than double than the farm we are selling. We love this kind of transaction. It's rotating, buying more and giving more farm to that manager to run.
I think we would like to have more than this transaction in the areas that we have no big farmers to be selling. The reason was someone was ready to pay, was a neighbor, and he was ready for paying a higher premium, and we found a way of having a better business related to that region. These two are the transactions of the semester, and we are waiting for more liquidity in the real estate, not only in Argentina, mainly Brazil. Brazil has much more liquidity in the real estate farm, the activity, but this is the first six months of the year. Related to fyo, we see here the evolution of fyo in tons, our service company that really is the largest, by far, service agricultural commercial company in the country.
Now expanding to the whole region, not only to Argentina, but Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile. Inputs and outputs, this is the evolution of outputs, the grains in Argentina. Now we are beginning to show in the next future, the volumes on the rest of the region. We come from a market share in the beginning of 2015, 3% market share of Argentina, went to 5, went to 6. Last year, we did 5.5 million tons. That represented 8% of market share of Argentina. That dropped a lot the campaign because of the drought. We are expecting for next year, 7 million or a little more, close to 6% market share of Argentina total crop. This is the evolution of EBITDA evolution.
Last year, we closed at $25 million, the year before, $28 million. The budget for this year is $27 million. This is a big company making huge profit, where Cresud owns 51% of the shares. I will introduce Matías to talk about our investment in IRSA, where Cresud owns 54% of the shares.
Thank you, Alejandro. Good morning, everybody. Analyzing the results of IRSA during the first half of the year were very good results, both in operational and financial. Tenant sales keep growing at a pace higher than inflation. EBITDA of the hotels remain very strong with very high occupancy. About our offices, there was a slight improvement in occupancy. This segment will have a benefit of the devaluation. Remember that here we collect revenues tied to the official exchange rates. After the devaluation, in Argentine pesos term, we will improve significantly our collection. Also during the quarter, there was a very strong real estate activity, selling two floors of the Della Paolera building.
We did a barter agreement on important plot of land in Ezpeleta, where we put the land, we will receive units from a close community that will be developed there. Also, we set up a new project, is the Della Paolera building trust. This is a building very close to the obelisk in Argentina, in downtown Buenos Aires. It's an important building that IRSA will be the developer and also an investor. We did the trust, we sold 100% of the project in less than a month. About the evolution of the rental EBITDA, you can see on the right side in US dollar terms, still strong. $166 million remain stable against the last year.
Probably we expect because of the new rules of the new administration, it will be probably a slowdown in consumption in the coming months. Probably in Argentine pesos term, our tenant sales will grow lower than the inflation. We will see that in the coming quarters. In dollar terms, maybe we will keep growing because the pace of the official exchange rate, they are evaluating the currency at 2%. Maybe in dollar terms, we will keep growing, but in Argentine pesos term, we will see a deceleration, at least in the coming quarters. Going to the next page. Alejandro mentioned some of what happened with the devaluation and inflation.
Just to remember that this has an impact both in our dollar denominated debt, the official exchange rate. We have to recognize results in Argentine pesos terms according to official exchange rates. The real devaluation will have an impact, a negative impact on our debt. On the other side, on the assets, we are valuing the best properties of IRSA at fair value. The shopping malls have value using the official exchange rate and the offices and land bank using the MEP effects. That will have an impact in when we review the results of the investment properties. Going to the next page, we can see the operational results on the agri business. When we compare with the previous year, it's a stronger quarter. Remember that last year we had the drought and basically in Argentina.
When we compare in the grain segment, we can see an improvement from a loss of ARS 6.2 billion to 446. If we open on a little more details in the grain, we will see better results in Argentina and lower results in Brazil. In Argentina, it's related to different drivers. First, we have a higher production against the estimations that we have at the end of the year, so that has a positive result. Also, the holding results has a positive result because of the devaluation. Also, when we compare with the previous year, in the wheat production, we have better results compared because of the drought last year. About the cattle, the last year prices increases lower than inflation.
Here we have the impact of the real appreciation this year, compared with the last year. About fyo, the other important part, we see here lower results, but it's only the seasonality during the quarter that compared with the previous year was more active quarter. As Alejandro showed, we expect very good results from fyo. Going to the next page. We can see on a consolidated basis, also including the results of IRSA, but excluding the fair value of investment properties, an increase of 80%. When we see the fair value of investment properties on the right side, we see a very important improvement. This is related of the evolution of the macro drivers of Argentina.
Basically, every time that we have a positive devaluation, we have positive results. When we have appreciation of the currency, we have lower results. When we measure this in dollar terms, the value of the properties are stable. It's only the effect of the devaluation and the inflation, the volatility. Going to next page. On the financial side, the net financial results here, we have on the left side, the evolution. The comparison is related first to the devaluation. In the next FX results, we have to give impact to the devaluation on our dollar-denominated debt, that generate a loss. That was somehow compensated by the fair value of our liquidity and also the inflation adjustment.
Most of our liquidity was invested in dollars. With this, we finish the semester with a gain of ARS 122 billion attributable to our controlling interest is 48.8, compared with ARS 59 billion or ARS 32.9 billion of the previous year. Going to the next page, we can see the evolution of our net debt. There was a reduction from fiscal year 2021, about 32% reduction to $288 million. Here we have the debt amortization schedule. After December, in January, we issue a new bond in the local market. We raised $64 million. $40 million were issued in dollar terms at an interest rate of 6% with maturity in 2027.
$24 million was to replace bank debt that we did it at a cost of BADLAR plus zero, the spread. There we have a maturity next year in January 2025. Most of the amortizations that you see here in the graph were replaced with longer tenor. We are happy that we could replace one debt that expired in May at the cost of 5.75% with a new bond that's 6%, so we haven't increased significantly the cost of funding. Next page we have, remember that in October we released, we approved a dividend. That was an important dividend, a dividend yield of 8%. We decided to try to anticipate what could happen with the elections and distribute before.
In the middle of the payment, there was a new regulation in Argentina that didn't allow us to pay as we used to. We have been working with the different authorities, and finally we got a change in the regulation that allow us to pay. In the middle, we haven't sent the money to Bank of New York, so we maintained the money in a money market fund. All the return over that fund, plus the conversion at the end of the day, means that investors collected 20% more in dollar terms than if we converted that at the first date in dollars. We are happy with the results. Finally, we are happy that we could distribute it, everything, without a major problem.
With this, finally, there was a completion of our buyback program. We finished the buyback of ARS 4 billion. That was conclude a couple of days ago. With this, we finish the formal presentation. Now we open the line to receive your questions. Thank you very much. The Q&A session. If you have a question, please, you can use the chat. We'll take the questions in the order we receive them. Thank you. Well, the first questions is related to the campaign. Which are the perspective for the campaign, if you can give a little bit more color on that. The recent measures of Milei and the one that he plans to take, how that could affect or impact in the agribusiness in general, and particularly in Argentina.
Related to the campaign, I think we can speak about a good, very good campaign in Argentina, in volumes. The conditions comparing year to year is easy because last year was one of the worst in the history of Argentina. Related to average, we expect a better than average year, and this is what the USDA is forecasting. The combination of the measures of the government. The government was trying to change the taxes on exports, finally didn't approve it and took it from the measures of the government. Up to now, the condition of the valuation in the farmers with the combination of the yields that is more than normal or better, really it's. Last year was a very negative campaign, and the Humid Pampa suffered a lot. Farmers lost money per hectare.
We didn't see any bankruptcy on the country. Really was amazing in a big, very big, strong situation, with the big taxes on exports, big gap on the dollars and big drop on the yields, no one disappeared. The situation for this year is much better for comparing, much better. We are all expecting good margins, dilution on costs because of FX and with the better yields. Situation, and probably giving more liquidity to the real estate to Argentina. Argentina was close to disconnected to the world. There was a big valuation of the land of the world, Argentina was close to be disconnected. Now, with this environment, we think it's going to be more liquid and stronger, the farms in Argentina, and we began to see two examples on this year.
Related to the rest of the region, I imagine close to normal conditions, little lower yields, but a lot of more liquidity in the rest of the farms. The average of the year for the region is, there is a reduction for margins for sure when you see the drop on prices. Margins for farmers are reducing. In the case of Argentina, we are the opposite because of the Argentine measures. In the farmers industry, this is now affecting the margins, so probably is helping us to be again buying after the disappearance of the sales probably will come a time of buying for the region, for Cresud and BrasilAgro.
Well, there is a question here related a little bit what we have already talked, Alejandro, the impact of the rejected Omnibus reform bill on Cresud and IRSA, the two companies. I don't know if you have something to add or...
In the output were affecting was an increase in taxes on exports. That is, it was a small negative. Small because we're 1, 2, 3 points increasing on the taxes and exports. In some of them, not all. It wasn't some impact, but was not so negative. The, what Milei is trying to change is many pockets on the country, he's talking about fiscal deficit and all kind of distortions on market, we think for farmers are going to be much better than worse. If Argentina is going to be allowing foreigners to buy more land, today they can, but small pieces. He was thinking on changing that and allowing farmers, foreigners, to buy in the size they want. That would be a connection of the price of the farm of Argentina.
Argentine corn belt today is at $15,000, I would say, comparing to a $40, $50 in U.S. That was very close relation, and now that gap is huge. It's one of the largest in history. Everything that Argentina will go in the, in the trend of connected to the world, it will be in the holding of the cattle, in the holding of the land, and probably... He was thinking on reduction on taxes in the long term. He said that. In the middle, he is showing serious measures to have surplus, not on deficit. That was his measure. He's thinking doing that too. The law didn't work, but now he's going to probably present something else. We don't know what it's going to be, but we are waiting for that.
We are thinking that Milei effect on the Argentine farmers and the urban story too, will come credit probably to Argentina, capital international market. We are optimistic on the kind of measures Milei is bringing to the economy. Now we are on that uncertainty of what are the next steps he's going to bring.
Here's additional question on regarding the FX. How do you think it will affect or at the end, if they liberate all the gap between the FX and there's a new FX and only one for Cresud. Mati?
I think Alejandro mentioned at the beginning when he described the evaluation, no? At the end of the day, farmers are receiving Argentine pesos according to the official exchange rate. If there is only one FX, farmers can convert those Argentine pesos into dollars, they will receive the same one amount of dollar. No, not a fictitious amount of dollars. That is definitely positive for farmers. I don't know what will be the level of the FX, though, if there will be one FX at the current value or the Blue Chip Swap value or higher value, we don't know. Definitely having only one exchange rate for farmers is something very positive. About our debt, we pay everything at the official exchange rate.
At the end of the day, if there is a devaluation, we will pay a higher cost in Argentine Argentine pesos term, but since our farms are valued in dollars and the productions are valued in dollars, then we are hedged against that. I believe that the normalization is very positive for the farming industry.
Well, we give two minutes more if there is any additional question. You can use the chat. Okay, if there are no more questions, we conclude the presentation, the Q&A session, and I turn back to Alejandro, CEO of Cresud, for his closing remarks.
As you know, in our long history, half of the year, it's the beginning of the campaign. Let's see the second half, probably more real estate transactions. Let's see what is the summer crop. That is the main activity for Cresud. The macro of Argentina, that probably will affect, and the new measures are going to be the main issue for Argentina for the next six months. Happy to be reducing the debt on the company on Cresud and comparing Cresud and IRSA and BrasilAgro and everything. The, today, the financial situation of the company is strong, very, very, very strong, related to the assets.
Maybe next presentation, we can show the holding of everything that shows a really very conservative position and assets that they are working much better than in the past, and now with a very big operational, commercial and real estate activity. Thank you very much and we see you next quarter. Have a very good day.