Good morning, everyone, welcome to this webinar to discuss the results of the second quarter 2022 of Grupo Carso. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this event is being recorded, 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, actual results may differ materially. Hosting this conference today, we have Mr. Arturo Spínola, Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Carso, and Angélica Piña, Investor Relations. I will be reading the speech before we proceed to the Q&A session. Thank you for your interest and your participation in this webinar. I will take you briefly through the second quarter's financial results, then we will take your questions. Consolidated sales of Grupo Carso improved 7.2%, totaling MXN 48 billion.
Carso Infrastructure and Construction posted a 21.5% increase due to the progress in CICSA and gas pipeline construction, infrastructure projects, and higher oil drilling activities. Grupo Sanborns went up 11.7%, supported by seasonal promotional activities at the department stores. On the other side, Condumex, Carso Energy, and Elementia decreased in sales 15%, 14.5%, and 11.2% respectively, due to revenues related to forex variations. Consolidated operating income increased 28.5% from MXN 4.8 billion- MXN 6.2 billion, with a higher gross margin. Lower costs reduced 260 basis points, even though administrative selling and other expenses went up. By division, the high profitability came from Grupo Sanborns, Carso Infrastructure, and Elementia, reflecting a better product and project mix.
Condumex and Carso Energy reduced its operating income 16.1 and 13.4%, respectively. EBITDA totaled MXN 7.6 billion, higher than MXN 6.1 billion a year ago. The consolidated controlling net income posted a slight increase of 0.8%, reflecting mainly the improvement in operating results. Explaining the performance by division, the total sales of Grupo Sanborns reached MXN 16.3 billion, increasing 11.7%. The Father's Day and Mother's Day promotions supported this dynamism, as well as the wholesale, which lasted 9 days and resulted in double-digit growth in our main retail formats. Operating income in Grupo Sanborns totaled MXN 1.4 billion compared to MXN 1 billion a year ago.
This was due to a 150 basis points increase in the retail gross margin, from 27.4% to 28% of sales, compensating the increase in operating expenses. EBITDA improved 25.2%, and net income reached MXN 932 million, compared to MXN 839 million in the second quarter of the previous year. Regarding stores, one Sanborns and one DAX store were opened during the period. Grupo Condumex decreased 15% in sales, totaling MXN 11.3 billion versus MXN 13.3 billion in the same quarter of last year. The industrial sector posted higher volumes in harnesses, automotive, and energy cables. Reductions came primarily from lower volumes of fiber optic, copper, and coaxial cable.
These lower performances and volumes were combined with a reduction in the Forex rate of 11.9%, where the strength of the peso impacted our revenues in US dollars. Carso Infrastructure and Construction contributed an additional MXN 2 billion in revenues, increasing 21.5% and reaching MXN 11 point CICSA billion. The divisions that had the best performance were manufacturing and services for the oil and chemical industry, where land drilling increased from fluids, directional drilling, and repair of oil wells. Pipeline installations, which grew due to telecom projects. Civil construction, where hospitals in 3 different cities are starting its construction. Lastly, infrastructure, showing important volumes in the different projects of this division. The operating income and EBITDA in Carso Infrastructure and Construction improved 11.2% and 13.1%, respectively.
Controlling net income increased, reaching MXN 716 million, driven by sound operating results. The projects currently in place are the Las Margaritas and Vista del Valle highways, telecom installation services, equipment for the petrochemical industry, drilling of deep wells for Pemex, various services and equipment for the oil industry, the construction of hospitals, and the Skarstedt and section two of the Mayan Train. The backlog totaled MXN 31 billion, compared to MXN 49.7 billion a year ago. Regarding Elementia, the sales increased 11.2% from MXN 9.3 billion in 2Q 2022 to MXN 8.2 billion in this quarter. This increase was due to lower demand in Construsistemas USA and the metals segments.
Elementia's operating income and EBITDA increased 20.9% and 14.1%, respectively, reflecting cost efficiencies in cement and lower distribution expenses in Construsistemas that improved profitability. Controlling net income in Elementia fell 13.5% to MXN 180 million. It is important to remember that since the second quarter of last year, Elementia Materiales and Fortaleza Materiales have been consolidating its numbers with Grupo Carso, S.A.
The sales of Carso Energy rose 14.5%, totaling MXN 902 million. This was attributable to exchange rate effects, while volumes improved in the different businesses in the division, such as the two hydroelectric plants in Panama, the natural gas transportation services through the pipelines of Guajaca and Guaca in Texas, USA, where we have a 51% participation, and the Zama gas pipeline, where we have a 100% participation. The operating income and EBITDA of Carso Energy went down 13.4% and 13.2%, respectively. Net income increased 86 %. Lastly, in this subsidiary, the construction of the compression station for the Zama gas pipeline will be completed in this period, which will significantly increase the capacity in the following quarters, depending on the demand.
With this, I finish my general comments to proceed to the Q&A session. Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand in the Teams, and we will open the microphone. The first question comes from Alejandro from GBM. Please, Alejandro, you can, your line is open.
Hola. Hola, Angélica, Arturo. Hi, a couple of questions on my end. The first one is on CICSA. You've been having a strong set of results during the past 12, 18 months, in line with strong project pipeline, your backlog is decelerating fast. What do you see in the upcoming quarters or in the coming 12, 18 months for CICSA? My worry is that your EBITDA has almost more than doubled in the past 12 months. How do you see the trend on the size of the business in CICSA? That would be my first question. The second one, if you could elaborate more on what are you guys doing in Elementia that is proving successful in terms of margins?
Where do you see the size of that business in the next 12 to 18 months? The third and last one is on the compressor station on Carso Energy. You mentioned the start of the commissioning. How are we gonna see the ramp up in the EBITDA, in the sales of that new compressor in Carso Energy? Those would be my three questions. Thank you.
Hi, Alejandro. Good morning. With regard to the CICSA backlog, really, first, it's important to say that since we, the final backlog, just contract signing, and usually we don't include the installation sector backlog, because we have no assignment contract. This sector, I mean, the installation sector, for example, just for this year, has backlog by around MXN 50 thousand million. I mean, it is almost 50% of CICSA, and the most of that sales are not part of the backlog. You know, the backlog usually is including the infrastructure sector, the oil and chemical services sector, et cetera. It's true that the backlog is increasing, but our sales are not increasing.
We hope to close this year with around MXN 35,000 million. The truth is that the infrastructure sector is going to be almost stopped for the 2022-2024 year, because we are finishing our present projects. I mean, Maya Train and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec highway, and we don't see in the short term, new projects, I mean, over public projects. In the rest of the sectors, maybe installations and manufacturing services for the oil and chemical industry, we are getting new projects. Now we are participating in four bids for platforms and other equipment. We have around MXN 20,000 million in the civil construction sector.
If you remember, the civil construction sector was in bad numbers in the last 2 years because of the pandemic, but now we are increasing our share there. Maybe we don't get the same sales that the last year, that was our record. Maybe, but we can maintain the present, with the present level because of the new business. We are increasing our participation in installation sector. If we get a new pipeline that CFE is pretending, this sector is going to construct that pipeline. We are not worried about the decrease in the pipeline in CICSA months. It seems that you forgot about Elementia.
In Elementia, the cement division is growing, is in numbers, is increasing, first in 2 digits. Those in this period increased 20% this days. Our problem is maybe in construction, because in the USA, the construction sector is decreasing, and it seems that increasing the rates are impacted. What we are doing is modernizing our factories in Aluga, the USA, and increasing our offers in South America, in which we are at good numbers. As if you remember, we commented that the main CapEx for this year in Carso is in Elementia.
Because we are increasing our capacity and improving our process in order to offer better prices and better products. It is going to be a little bit difficult because the market is decreasing in our sector, but we are trying to offer better products in order to recover the market share. In the case of metals, that we are increasing more than 20% in this period, maybe it's important to remember that the corporate brand is around 21% lower than the same period that the in the last year. Because the economy is decreasing and the exchange rate is decreasing.
We just decrease around 5 to CICSA percent in volume, but in MXN is more than 20%, around 28% in metals. That is a macroeconomical effect because in the corporate, I mean, the metals division, we sell copper. You know, the copper price is impacting important way in our performance. Finally, regarding the compression station, it will be finished in September, August or September. Yeah, including the test and the liberation of the process, in the last quarter, must be ready to use. We are now already commercializing that capacity, and at the end of the year, we can see the first results.
Next year is going to be the year in which we can get incomes around the data pipeline.
Arturo, if I may, a quick one and an easy one. The returns on your gas pipelines, your IRR, the ones that you calculate before you enter the projects, could you mention those?
In terms of increasing capacity, this is a more than 20%, if you see us in there. If you see us, EBITDA, must be more than 85%.
No, but that's... Okay, that's I mean, the Samalayuca ones, the Waha ones, the return that you get by investing-
Yes, it's.
20%?
15%, 20%.
15%, 20%? Okay.
Yes.
Thank you very much, Arturo and Angélica.
Welcome.
You're welcome. Our next question comes from Miguel Ulloa. Miguel, your microphone is now open.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. The first one would be regarding the industrial division. Could you provide some color on the telecom segment, and how long do you expect this acceleration to last in the top line, going forward?
You know, Miguel, we don't see a deceleration. It's more a matter of the copper price and the exchange rate. As you know, the copper price is sitting around 30% in pesos, and the exchange rate more than 10%, if you take the average exchange rate. We are increasing our volumes in some sectors, in the automotive sector, in the construction sector. The only sector in which we are reducing our volumes is telecommunications. On the other hand, I think, we are now approving process to increase our capacity. For example, in high voltage cables, you can use in the electrical vehicles and in the power cables. I mean, power for the distribution lines for CFE and other utilities.
We see if the Mexican peso get a more logical exchange rate, we will see an increase in our sales. If you see the operating profit as a %, we are maintaining it. Because we are being too strong with our cost, our prices, et cetera. Our problem is the copper price, the exchange rate. Now we have new contract signed in the automotive sector for the next year. We have new purchase order for the CFE or new line transmissions. We are confident about the industrial sector, even when the states are not reaching our target.
We hope a recovery for the last of the year. If the exchange rate comes to a better level for the next quarters, we're going to see better numbers. For example, just in the automotive sector, we are increasing just 1%, even when the exchange rate decreased 11%. We are investing, we have confidence for this sector, and we are confident about that. Let's see what happens in the next quarter.
Thanks. That's, that's useful. The second one, if I may, is regarding Sanborns. recovering the profitability before pre-pandemic levels is something that you foresee in the future, or is something that will take couple of quarter more, or probably 2024? How should we think about it?
Grupo Sanborns this quarter posted a good growth, but this was supported by the promotions of Father's Day, Mother's Day, and mostly in June, the Hot Sale. These were 9 days of promotions where we had in the consolidated basis, more than 20% growth. That was very good. We are taking, like, advantage of also our credit card. Our NPLs are controlled, like, more than in the market. I think it was as it had been in the first quarter, a result of also using our credit card. It was more a credit income and the performance of our department stores, mainly. That has been helping in recover the margins, which we expect we can do that until the fourth quarter.
A recovery in margins, supported by the credit, and also by the new formats such as Dax, which opened one store this quarter. I think that's, like, the result, more traffic at the stores, more use of the credit card, and that's why you see the recovery of the margins in the this quarter. That's what we expect for the also the second quarter, the second semester of this year.
Thank you. That's useful.
Another question, please raise your hand, and then we'll open your microphone. There are no more questions for the session. We will end this webinar for the moment. You know, we are open to receiving your calls and your emails for any information additional that you need. Thank you very much for participating. Have a nice day.