Earnings Call: Q1 2020

Apr 23, 2020

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Grupo RotoPlas First Quarter 2020 Results Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded and all participants are currently in a listen only mode to prevent background noise. The host will open the floor for questions later. Today's discussion contains forward looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we currently see it and as such there may be certain risk and uncertainty associated with such statements. Please refer to your press release for more information on the specific risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise. Please allow me to remind you that the company issued its earnings press release yesterday after market close. It can be found in the Investors section of its website. Also, the presentation for the call and the webcast link are in the Investors section. Today's call will be hosted by Mr. Carlos Rojas of Boomerad, Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Mario Romero, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Carlos Rojas. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. Besides facing complex times, the months ahead will be crucial in the timing of what our daily lives and our economies will look like in the future. However, I'm confident that we will go through and together we will come out stronger to face new challenges. At the prime period of water company, Westpac has been doing and will continue to play a key role in this crisis, particularly in light of the fact that ensuring the availability of and quality of water is now a perfect concern than ever in all the countries we operate. We will continue to bring innovative and effective water solutions to our clients throughout the hemisphere, just as we are committed to continue helping our communities. We are in an excellent position to achieve both objectives. As some of you may remember, for the past quarters, we have been concentrating on strengthening and streamlining key aspects of our business through Flow, our transformational program. Flow is aimed at creating value for our shareholders via optimal capital allocation and increased growth and profitability, while upholding the highest PSG standards and on purpose. Flow remains an ongoing process, of course, but its preliminary results have put us in a strong position to address the challenges brought about by the current pandemic. As we entered the Q1 with a strong balance sheet, an improved debt maturity profile and most importantly, the resilient client focused business model and more efficient operations across the continent. This past February, for instance, we successfully reopened our 5 year sustainable bond, ARDA 17 2X, for the 2nd time, netting ARS1600,000,000 and extending the maturity to 2027. We also took take the outstanding MXN 600,000,000 from the previous reopening and closed 2 derivative positions on very favorable terms, bringing an additional ARS 332,000,000. Combined with our quarterly growth and our improved efficiencies, including the divestment and unperforming assets, which we undertook previously, this gain has greatly strengthened our balance sheet and brought our debt ratio to 0.4x, all of the impacts of the denominator. Given a significant flexibility in current environments while fully covering our USD our U. S. Dollars denominated operating expenses for the year. It is important to notice that all our debt is Mexican pesos. From an operational standpoint, we successfully implemented our business continuing plan, transitioning the majority of our employees to remote working schemes. We implemented strict hygiene and safety standards and protocols in accordance to the World Health Organization guidelines for the remainder of who work in manufacturing facilities. The health is helping that our employees is of the utmost priority for us, as is that of our customers and our communities. It is fortunate that as a multinational company with diverse product lines, we already have very robust and useful remote working and collaboration technologies, which have significantly eased the current transition. We will remain attentive to the mitigation measures adopted across the region. And if necessary, we will continue to adjust our operations accordingly. And of course, we will keep you updated on any development as we have been doing for the past weeks. As many of our discussions in further detail, we expect that the current reduction in economic activity will have an impact on some of our product lines. But as Sal also mentioned, we will continue to provide much needed water solutions to help our clients cope with their current situation, particularly through our water as a service platform and our strengthened e commerce and telemarket platform in the United States. Finally, we reactivated the Water for Affected Areas Program, or EPASA, which we developed in the aftermath of the 2017 earthquake in Mexico. And we have redirected it to address the need of the health system and vulnerable communities in the context of the pandemic. We have already delivered in Mexico, Argentina and Peru over 500 storage solutions and over 1,000 washing hand washing stations in public spaces as well as purification systems for hospitals. Free of maintenance and operation costs for years. In the case of Mexico, through the Veja platform. Moreover, we will continue to work with NGOs and government institutions to identify new opportunity to bring more and better water to those in Italy. We have been and remain fully committed to creating value for our shareholders and to the well-being of our employees, our clients and our communities. The current situation demands that each of us be part for the sake of all of us. We behave on behalf of our company, I will turn our vow to continue doing everything on our power to help our community, countries overcome this crisis. Thank you for your time and attention. I will now turn over the call to Mario so that he can go over the quarterly results and margin I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Charlie. Good morning, everybody. Thank you again for joining us today. I do hope you are all safe and that we will be able to return to our regular schedule soon. I will now go over some of the key aspects of our Q1 results. Sales in Mexico grew 10% during the Q1 due to increased demand for both products and our water as a service platform, which grew by 12%, driven by an increase in sales of water fountains, treatment plants and most importantly, OPEDIA. Our drinking water platform, which grew 55% during the quarter and doubled its sales after the adoption of mitigation measures in Mexico in the second half of March, a good example of the need and importance to access water during the current pandemic. We successfully execute our pricing strategy for our products ahead of our competitors. And our new price mix helped us offset the reduction in demand that follow the mobility restrictions during the last 2 weeks of March. Our plants and distribution centers are deemed essential and therefore continue to operate with strict safety protocols and reduced staffing. Sales in Argentina fell by 19% in Mexican pesos due to the challenging macroeconomic conditions, the continued depreciation of the Argentinian currency and a reduction in demand, which was not compensated by an improved price mix. Our plants in Argentina operated intermittently since March 20, in line with government measures. We are currently prioritizing deliveries to the health system and donated or sold storage solutions on the preferential price to affected municipalities. We expect to participate in the installation of hand washing public stations. In Central America, sales increased by 19%. This was due in large measure to the changes we have enacted in our commercial teams and policies, better addressing the specific characteristics of each market and in line with flow initiatives for the region. Our manufacturing and distribution operations have been affected in varying degrees by the different measures adopted in the second half of March to combat the pandemic. Peru began a total lockdown after March 2016, following positive trends in both January February. We have reduced our production in Brazil to adjust for the contraction in demand and are currently analyzing the prospects of services projects pipeline, which seems to exhibit positive trends. Finally, the demand for water solutions increased in the United States. The social distancing increased the demand for residential solutions and agroindustrial activities continue, this was resulting in a 23% sales growth. Our e commerce platform saw increased activity. Most of our suppliers continue operating and we have secured the availability of delivery services to various logistic companies. We will be monitoring the situation closely and adjust as necessary in all of the countries where we operate. It is important to note at this point that government sales as a percentage of total revenue remain well under our 10% target, amounting to 6.7% during the Q1, an increase compared to last quarter due to a program that provides sanitation systems to areas with no sewage and drinking water fountains contracts for schools. In terms of our portfolio mix, sales of products during the quarter accounted for 93% of total sales and grew 1.5% compared to the Q1 of 2019. Services, on the other hand, grew 12.2% year over year, testing to the growing strength of our water as a service platform. In particularly Bevia, our drinking water platform reached more than 27,000 purification points in 118 municipalities in Mexico by the end of March. In addition to these record sales for Beddia, we registered a strong performance from our school water fountain business and continue to realize a steady income from treatment debts. We added 7 new clients to the portfolio during the quarter. From the top, quarterly sales negatively 2.2% year over year, which shows the resilience of our business model in the context of volatile environments. EBITDA and the EBITDA margin registered a minimum contraction, 0.2% and 40 basis points respectively. Gross margin increased more than 100 basis points as a result of the efficiencies brought by flow and reduced raw material costs. Net profits from continued operations increased as a result of the strategic divestment of underperforming assets last year and the unwinding of favorable hedging positions as Charlie already mentioned. Specifically, we closed an interest rate related outstanding, our 17x that we prepared in February and given the depreciation of the Mexican pesos and our strong position in U. S. Dollar, a U. S. Dollar Mexican peso forward contract. The increasing net profit also caused a hike in our tax burden. If we take out the gains of the hedging instrument, net profit will have amounted to approximately ARS193 1,000,000, which is 105% increase compared to Q1 2019. As Charlie pointed out, the strengthening of the balance sheet through the prepayment and reopening of the sustainable bond program, the optimization of working capital, the discipline in capital allocation and some project improvements increased our cash and cash equivalent holdings by 82%. And we brought down our net debt to EBITDA ratio to 0.4x, well below our 2x ratio policy and all is denominated in Mexican pesos due in 2027. Also CapEx remains at a very sustainable rate of 4% as a percentage of revenues. 34% of the total CapEx were allocated for water treatment and recycling plants. We are continuing to work tirelessly to create value for our shareholders for our transformational effort flow. Our strong balance sheet is a result of that process. As are the disciplined efficiencies we have brought about in capital allocation and our operations, including the optimization of our working capital. In fact, the preliminary results of flow have afforded us a degree of financial flexibility, which should help us ensure that we address the challenges associated with the pandemic promptly and efficiently. To this end, we have established a cash flow control tower, which convinced WIKI to perform a detailed analysis and follow-up of our liquidity, income, expenses and our terms with both clients and suppliers among other subjects. This is not only strengthening the capital allocation discipline we have already established, but greatly increase our ability to address any issues that may arise in the coming weeks months. I would also like to point out that we continue to advance towards our goal of having a return on invested capital without our cost of capital by the end of the year. In fact, by increasing our ROIC and increasing our weighted average cost of capital during the Q1, we registered the lowest spread between the 2 in the past 15 quarter. But spread now is only 2 41 basis points. Also, as we pointed out, Flow aims to create value while I'm calling the highest ESG standard. To that end, this quarter we brought about 4 key initiatives and processes. The first one was to define our company's value proposal for each of our stakeholders in the context of climate change dynamics. Through this exercise, we decided to focus in 3 main aspects: 1, promoting assets to water for the base of the pyramid, I. E, the most vulnerable populations 2, reducing waste and resource consumption, what is often referred to as circular economy and 3, potentialize our water service platform to increase the access to quality water in all of our communities. Additionally, we undertook a gender quality diagnostic that will inform our efforts in this regard as well our diversity efforts down the line. We also updated and eliminated our code of ethics and professional conduct. And we reactivated our PASA effort, which is now focused on bringing relief in the context of the pandemic under the name TASA C-nineteen. Finally, we will hold our general shareholders meetings tomorrow, Friday, April 24. The main proposals that will be considered can be summarized as follows: a, the approval for capital reimbursement through capital reduction in the amount of $0.40 through exchange of shares of the company and $0.40 in cash B, the ratification of the 15 members of the Board of Directors, including its 8 independent members, the ratification of the current committee composition and the compensation of the members of the Board and its committees and C, the approval of the total sum allocated to the share repurchase program for the fiscal year 2020 in line with our shareholders' value creation strategy, which may amount up to the net total net profits, including retained earnings as of the end of 2019. We expect that the economic downturn associated with the pandemic will have an impact across all of our major markets. However, it must be regulated that we have a very strong balance sheet and we would use the flexibility to afford costs to ensure that we are in a position to continue serving our clients and strengthening our water as a service platform through the pandemic and its aftermath. So in terms of guidance for 2020, given the volatility in the different markets we are experiencing where we operate, we rather prefer to innovate and focus more in balance sheet management and cash flow generation. We believe that as a water company, our products and services play a key role in the current crisis, and we will be closely analyzing its impact on our client base and our product pipeline. However, we are confident that our business model will continue to prove its resilience as it has done in the past when we faced with complex political and economic environments. Thank you. As usual, we will now answer any questions you may have. Please, operator, proceed. Thank you, Mr. Rojas, there appears to be no questions from the phone lines at this time. Mr. Rojas, there appear to be no questions from the audience at this time. Should we proceed with the questions in the webcast? Sure. Do you want me to read it? We have the first question from Liliana de Leon from GBM. Could you please give us a preliminary estimate about volumes growth in 2020 considering the imminent economic deceleration? We can also read the 3rd question. We have another question from Antonio Rodriguez from Prosoturo. What was the estimated growth in the revenue for 2020 before COVID-nineteen? And what is the estimated growth in revenue for 2020 considering such pandemic situation? So regarding 2020 volume sales, will allow for Mario to complement, but we will continue to see strong demand for other solutions. Not all the markets are being markets where it's being possible for those who want our solutions to be able to acquire our solutions. For instance, in the case of Peru, the country was completely shut down, including those stores, and there were no sales for some of the days of March. So while demand continues to be strong because the need for access to water and water of good quality continues to be red. In some of the cases, it's not possible to access the solutions as a consequence of what different markets are regulating. So in terms of our forecast for 2020, I will allow Mario to complement the answer. Yes. Thank you, Charlie. As I explained during the conference call, we prefer rather to renew the guidance we see for 2020, given all the volatility and uncertain things, it's a week by week new development we are facing. As explained during the conference, we experienced lockdowns in Peru, in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, So it's hard to manage any expectations given all that volatility. I will tie that up to the question from Antonio from Profitability. Before COVID-nineteen, the guidance we gave to the market was sales above 10% and EBITDA margin above 18%. Net debt to EBITDA was 2x and ROIC equals above WACC. I would say that, as I've mentioned, we're going to be more focused in balance sheet management and cash flow generation rather than P and L. And the reason I'm saying P and L is because what we explained before. There's a lot of volatility there. It's not a supply issue that we're having. It's more the demand from the consumer. So with mobility restrictions and the lockdowns, anything can happen. So we are committed to have ROIC, default or roadblock and we are committed to manage very tightly cash flow generation and the balance sheet. Just to give you an idea, Antonio and Juliana, we lost during March about 10% of the quarterly sales from the different lockdowns and interruptions to the different countries where we operate. We have another question from David Simon. Can you please provide more details on Vevia? For example, are agents able to enter households to install and service as normal? So as mentioned, we have a top priority making sure our talent and our customers are safe. And so we have implemented in accordance to World Health Organization guidelines, both on standards and protocols. And so we have continued to operate where countries or markets allow it to do as we have been considered an essential industry for this COVID situation. So we have been able to access in terms of data on customers' homes and continue to install the water as a service solution in terms of drinking water. It has been very successful. Demand has been very high. There are obviously concerns by customers, but we do explain what is our protocol in terms of sanitation. They are confident with our service. They allow us to enter their homes and they are very happy with the alternative of just having us visit them once as opposed to the alternative of having to access bottled water in a more recurring manner. So Bevya continues to see a surging level, which is very, very interesting. Do you want to go with the question 5, Mariana? Sure. We have another question from Mauricio Alvarado from Citibenomics. Can you please expand on expectations on operating performance during the next month? Any particular concerns? As I mentioned, we are going to be fully well, first of all, thanks for joining the call, Mauricio, and thanks for the question. As mentioned, we are going to be fully focused on balance sheet and cash flow management. Our concerns are more related. Well, first of all, we want to make sure all of our employees are safe and healthy. That's our main concern right now. And second, as explained throughout the call, all the lockdown and mobility restrictions are causing affectations in demand. So that will be the concern. On the other hand, and as you know, being the water industry, where water is crucial to this COVID-nineteen crisis. We are seeing constant demand for some of our products and services. The next question is from Rodrigo Salazar. What can we see going forward in terms of marketing expenses for the service segment? Thanks, Rodrigo, for joining us and thanks for the great question. We are seeing a big, big opportunity in Beria and Aquantia, which is the drinking water platform and the e commerce. So we are really doubling down in our marketing and commercial efforts through this crisis. It might sound interesting, but I think our products are or business models are pretty much designed to what's happening right now. So we are doubling down our efforts on the water as a service platform and in the e commerce platform. We have another question from Jose Cebuera at Timber. Hello, Charlie and Mario. Congrats in the results and the significant improvement in the ROIC. I have just one quick question and easy relationship with the SO strategy. The company has been able to deliver positive results despite the challenging environment as a result of the COVID-nineteen restrictions in some countries. But my question is regarding if this flow strategy suggests doing something different in the current situation with COVID-nineteen against the previous scenario? Hello, Pepe. Thank you very much for joining the call and for your question. I'll answer first and then I'll now for Mehdi to complement. It's funny how timely flow happened to be for Rotterplatz. It's a transformation that really helped us being in such a great shape facing this very, very complex and difficult situation. And the reason we were doing it was because we knew the world was going to change. We didn't know it was going to happen as a consequence of COVID, but we did know that the world needed a different approach to water and a different approach to doing businesses. And so what we see that COVID is really just accelerating this trend that we had to happen, which is leveraging more digital capabilities, strengthening innovation practices. The sustainability just becomes more relevant, obviously, in the long term, but it's obviously the way to go, being customer centric. So all of the initiatives we have designed were in alignment of what the world is going to need post COVID or a new transformation of the world because the world will change and the world will change in a more accelerated way, but it will change in the direction where it should have changed in the past. And so our purpose of generating well-being for customers, for society and for the environment, it's in great alignment with the transformation we'll see with COVID. So obviously, in terms of timing, some initiatives might change their timing. But in general, just having being passionate about servicing customer needs with the customer at the center of our strategy in a way where they have just a much better experience and where we service them in a much better way end to end is just in super good alignment with the transformation we're seeing with COVID. Mario, would you like to comment? I think you have said it all. Just I think I will only add that we started this transformation process more than 9 months ago. So the company is in a very good shape to navigate through these challenging times. Well, thank you very much everybody. We hope you will join us again next quarter. Until then, we'll be sure to keep you updated of any relevant news as they happen. And that does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.