Good afternoon, and thank you for holding. Welcome to Grupo México's First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With us this afternoon are all of Grupo México's top executives, who will discuss the financial performance of the company during the first quarter of 2024 results, giving you a summary of the latest news and addressing any questions you may have at the end of the call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's results and prospects, which are subject to risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially, and the company cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Grupo México undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. All results are expressed in full US GAAP.
The presentation may be followed through our webcast, but if you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, you will need to do so via phone call by pressing star one, one. A copy of the slides that the company will be reviewing today is available on their website at grupomexico.com. At this moment, I would like to remind everyone that your lines must be in listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Now it's my pleasure to hand the call over to Ms. Marlene Finny.
Thank you so much, Carmen. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Grupo México's first quarter earnings conference call. Joining me here today are the top executives from our three divisions. As usual, during our call, we will be following a presentation that can be downloaded from our website or followed by joining the webcast as well. Today's program can be found on slide number three. So I will start with Grupo México ESG highlights, followed by the quarter scorecard and financial highlights. Then Mr. Leonardo Contreras will provide detailed information regarding our mining division, starting with our view for the copper market, followed by the division's main highlights, highlights and project updates. After that, Isaac Franklin will go through the financial results, main events, and metrics of our transportation division. And lastly, but not least, Mr.
Francisco Zinser will comment on our infrastructure division's results and relevant events. At the end, as usual, the line will be open for any questions you might have, and we will be answering them. I want to start by highlighting that our three divisions showcased good results during the quarter. Within our mining division, that we saw the mining division materializing, Buenavista seeing first volume and improvement, improving copper production quarter-over-quarter. And our transportation and infrastructure division showed double-digit growth in the financial results quarter-over-quarter as well, during this first quarter of 2024. With that being said, let's move on to our main ESG highlights. That is slide 5. Okay. I'll briefly mention some achievements, but you can also dive deeper into our ESG metrics and achievements on our recently published ESG annual report.
That is the, that is in our website, and you can download, and it has all the information. It is important to mention that we have been included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook for the third time in a row, as we are ranked among the top 15% best-rated companies in sustainability in the metals and mining sector. On climate action, we received clean energy certificates from one of our energy suppliers in Peru during the first quarter of 2024, as we increased our renewable energy consumption to 36% in 2023. This is already surpassing our 2027 target, which was to ensure that 25% of our, at least 25% of our electricity supply was derived from renewable sources. We already achieved our 2027 goal by this year.
We'll continue with our scorecard on slide number six, which shows significant recovery versus the fourth quarter of 2023. Revenues in the first quarter of the year reached $3.8 billion. This is a 1.6% decrease versus the first quarter of 2023, but a strong recovery of more than 11% on a quarterly basis. Along these lines, our EBITDA totaled close to $2 billion. This is 6.6% lower than the same quarter of last year, but more than 27% higher than the last quarter of 2023. Our copper production reached almost 268,000 tons of copper for this quarter. This is roughly a 6% increase when compared to last year's first quarter, and 1.5% above the fourth quarter of 2023. So we continue to grow our production.
Our net cash cost totaled $1.28 per pound, which is 29% above the first quarter of 2023. Nonetheless, we saw a $0.15 reduction in cash costs, translating into a more than 10, 10.6% improvement when compared to the fourth quarter of last year. It is important to always have in mind that we continue to have the best cash costs in the copper industry worldwide. Mr. Leonardo Contreras will get into more details for the mining division in a few minutes. Additionally to this, the board approved a MXN 1 per share dividend during this quarter, which translates into a roughly 4% dividend yield. Moving on to slide number seven, you can find our usual summary of financial highlights in case you need it at any point during the call.
Moving on to slide number eight, we show that Grupo México maintains a solid balance sheet with low leverage and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.3x . As you might already know, our debt is mainly issued in dollars, representing 75% of the total debt, while the rest is denominated in Mexican pesos, and 95% of our total debt was issued with a fixed rate. On this slide, you can also see the dividends paid from 2022 to 2024, and the implied dividend yield, including the MXN 1 dividend approved for this quarter, which will be paid on May 24? May 21. We continue to have a comfortable debt maturity, as you can see on the next slide, number nine, with no payments of over $1 billion until 2035.
Our cash position ended the quarter at $6.7 billion, an increase of 1.5% versus last quarter. Now, I will let Mr. Leonardo comment on our mining division's performance.
Thank you, Marlene. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you again for joining us today. I will start with our view of the current copper market, shown on Slide 11. The LME copper price decreased 5.4% on a yearly basis, from an average of $4.05 per pound to $3.83, seen in the first quarter of 2024. After several producers announced reductions in copper production, that concerns about a potential deficit displaced market optimism. We now estimate that the copper supply will drop by about 1% this year, shifting our last quarter's view of a slight market surplus for 2024. In addition to the significant downward revisions to global outlook of copper production for 2024, we're currently seeing strong market demand on the back of our resilient U.S. economy and new demand from decarbonization technologies and artificial intelligence.
We believe these new factors will play a significant role in supporting long-term copper demand, plus sustaining attractive copper prices. Now, let's continue with the mining division's financial highlights on Slide 12. Our copper production totaled just short of 268,000 tons, an increase of almost 6% year-over-year, and 1.4% quarter-over-quarter, mainly driven by an 18.7% increase in production in the Peruvian operations, and the 2,158 tons of copper produced by our Buenavista Zinc concentrator.
Moving on to our financial results on the same slide, our sales ended the quarter in $2.82 billion, 7.4% lower than the first quarter of 2023, due to a decrease in copper, moly, and zinc prices, which we were able to partially offset with higher copper and molybdenum sales volumes. Our EBITDA stood at $1.47 billion, 11.5% lower than the first quarter of 2023, and 33% higher on a quarterly basis. Our EBITDA margin ended the period at 52.2%. As for our net cash costs, which ended the period at $1.28, a 15-cent improvement, which translates into a 10.6% improvement, mainly due to an operating cost improvement alongside higher production and higher by-product credits.
Now, regarding CapEx, we invested $236 million during the first quarter of the year. I would like to continue talking about our projects updates on Slides 13 and 14. Focusing first on our short-term projects, in our Buenavista Zinc concentrator, located in Sonora, we have already invested $383 million out of the $439 million capital budget. The concentrator already started operations during the first quarter of 2024. We expect to produce more than 54,500 tons of zinc and almost 12,000 tons of copper in 2024, and an average of 90,000 tons of zinc and 20,000 tons of copper per year during the next five years.
Our Tía María project, with an estimated $1.4 billion capital budget, will use top-tier SX-EW technology to produce 120,000 tons of copper cathode per year, operating with the highest international environmental standards. We expect to start the construction phase in the near future, as we consider it essential to move forward with this project to stimulate a sustainable growth cycle, given the current economic situation in Peru. Now, let's continue with our long-term projects in the next slide. In Los Chancas, our project in Apurímac, Peru, we continue to engage in coordinated efforts with the Peruvian authorities to eradicate the illegal mining activity. Once this process is completed, we will restart the environmental impact assessment, initiate the hydrological and technical studies, and start the diamond drilling campaign for 40,000 meters to gather additional information on the characterization of the deposit....
Lastly, commenting on our Michiquillay project. By the end of the first quarter of the year, we have drilled 80,000 meters out of 110,000 planned, and obtained almost 28,000 core samples for chemical analysis. The diamond drilling is on the way, and we will provide data for cross-section interpretation, geological modeling, and resource evaluation. Now, on Slide 15, you can see a summary of all our upcoming projects and their production and CapEx profile, which will lead us to reach us closer to two million tons of copper production per year. We are all very excited about this robust pipeline of projects coming in line at such a crucial moment for the copper market worldwide. If you happen to have any follow-up questions, we will address them during the Q&A. Now, I will let Isaac comment on our Transportation division.
Thank you, Leonardo, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining us. Continuing with the Transportation division in Slide 17, I would like to talk about our financial highlights for the first quarter of the year. Our sales reached $885 million, 16.1% increase versus first quarter 2023, mainly driven by the revaluation of the exchange rate. Our EBITDA for the quarter totaled $397 billion during the quarter, 8.6% above the first quarter of 2023. The EBITDA margin showed a 310 basis point contraction, ending the period at 44.9%. However, on a quarterly basis, our EBITDA increased a solid 21.8%.
As for our net income, it totaled $142 million during the quarter, 25.7% higher than 2023, and 30.7% higher quarter-over-quarter. Volumes increased 5.9% in net tons kilometer, while carl oads came in over 10.4% higher than the same quarter of last year. Now, let's continue with the main variation of our revenue on Slide 18. In relative terms, this quarter's top performer was the Intermodal segment, which saw an increase of 16%, as we saw higher higher cross-border volumes coupled with domestic market share gains. With single-digit growth, we had bulk with 4% growth due to several factors, such as a significant increase in grain solid train imports, market share gains in resins imports, and chlorine freight, partially offset by a slow start in refined product imports.
Lastly, we have merchandise showing a 1% drop, where the automotive volume increased due to better multilevel fleet and new inventory releases, was offset by the decrease in industrial cement and metals, which were impacted by lower domestic, beer and finished products. The revaluation of the Mexican peso and lower scrap volumes, respectively. Moving to Slide 19, to our operating metrics. Firstly, I would like to mention that during the first quarter of 2024, we adopted several operating practices in line with the North American Railway Standard that will generate improvements in service to serve chain supply in Mexico and the U.S. Average train speed is in line with the first quarter of 2023, at 38 km per hour.
Dwell time has shown an increase of 17%, mainly due to bottlenecks caused by the aftermath of the migrations crisis, which resulted in 6% decrease in car velocity for the quarter. Crews have registered an increase of 6%, in line with our volume growth. Average train length has decreased by 12%, and gross ton per train shows a decrease of 8% for the quarter. During this year, we will continue to focus all our efforts on improving productivity levels and preserving efficiency in all our processes, with the purpose of increasing competitiveness in our service. On Slide 20, you can see our expected CapEx for 2024. As we have commented before, GMXT's board approved a plan to invest close to $491 million during the year for maintenance, growth, efficiency, and special projects.
We continue to work intensively on the quality of our tracks, where we invest the most part of CapEx and OpEx. In line with this, almost 62% of the yearly CapEx will be invested in maintenance, including new rail and ties, locomotive overhauls, bridges, and servicing, through which we also gain efficiency, speed, and reliability for our service. Also, we are investing $51 million growth CapEx, including the Pesquería branch siding enlargements and the balance on being double tracked, along with sales and marketing projects, which will allow us to deliver the expected growth. Other important special projects with $92 million budget allocation that will allow us to continue gaining market share include the Monterrey and Celaya bypass, the El Mexicano Tunnel Rehabilitation, and a safety program.
Lastly, $44.3 million will be invested in our efficiency programs, including track equipment and enhancing our digital operating system, along with the construction and reconfiguration of yards. This concludes our general overview of the Transportation division. I will now let Francisco Zinser comment on the Infrastructure division.
Thank you very much, Isaac, and good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I want to state that we continue to make progress towards our strategic objectives and growth within all of our business units. Now, I'll go through the financial highlights of the Infrastructure division, showcased in slide number 22.
... an increase in daily quotas across the six drilling rigs, reduced pass-through gas expenses in the energy sector, capacity increase in our toll roads, along with better production in construction and the successful integration of our real estate operations, allowed us to continue with the good results, with sales totaling $190 million, a 22% increase versus the same period of last year, and a 4.5% increase on a quarterly basis. Our EBITDA netted $89 million, a slight decrease of less than 1% quarter-over-quarter, but almost a 5% increase year-over-year, with EBITDA margin standing at 47%. Lastly, net income totaled $10 million. To close the infrastructure division highlights, I would like to go through some of our most relevant events depicted on slide number 23.
A noteworthy operational efficiency in 2024, alongside consistent profitability improvements, allowed Perforadora México to achieve a strong 96.5% occupation rate. These previously mentioned adjusted daily quotas allowed this business unit to reach $58 million in net sales and $30 million in EBITDA, a 16% and 10% increase, respectively, when compared to the same period of last year. In our toll road business unit, increased daily traffic, which was over 3% higher than the previous year, led to a considerable revenue rise. This has played a pivotal role in enhancing the unit's overall profitability, with cumulative sales of $18 million and a $12 million EBITDA, surpassing last year's performance.
With the objective of expanding our presence with the new and existing clients of our engineering business unit, we opened an office in Peru, considered to be a strategic hub to reach new markets. This office began operations during the first quarter of the year and represents the beginning of our expansion strategy to establish a foothold in a region with great potential for infrastructure development and innovation. Lastly, our real estate business unit continues to be a key contributor to our growth, with revenues for the quarter reaching $19 million and an EBITDA of $12 million, a 14% and 30% increase, respectively, when compared to the same period of last year. These results were achievable as a result of strong rents and fees, coupled with the enhanced occupancy, which totaled almost 95%.
Notably, these figures reflect a 100% incremental for the division compared to 2023, following the consolidation of real estate data commencing on April 19th of last year. With this, I conclude a review of the main highlights of the infrastructure division. Now, I will let Marlene give her closing remarks.
Thank you so much, Francisco, and thank you so much, Leonardo, Isaac, and everybody here for your comments on Grupo México. Thank you everyone again for your time and attention. With that being said, we will open the line for the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one one to get in the queue if you do have a question, and wait for your name to be announced. To remove your question, simply press star one one again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question, please. It comes from Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Marlene and gentlemen. Thank you very much. So first question, if I may, Marlene, it has to do with the dividend that Grupo México, as the controlling shareholder of Southern Copper, is receiving in shares of Southern Copper instead of cash. Is this something that aligns with the preference of Grupo México? And if not, was there any conversation between the two companies, and Grupo México express the fact that it would receive—it would like to receive cash and instead of shares? Maybe you could... We heard what Southern Copper said, but we would like to hear from the perspective of the controlling shareholder, how do you see this topic?
And then I have another question for Francisco, if I can, please.
Sure, Carlos. Well, this, the decision of the Southern Copper dividend in share, that was—this is something that the board, the Southern Copper board, decide. It was a decision made, and I would comment on this before. We have a very comfortable position, cash position in Grupo México. So in reality, we keep—also a decision from the board, the Grupo México dividend, the one peso of dividend, is also a decision that was made last week, and we feel comfortable with the cash position that we have, giving that away, and we'll continue to consolidate the track record we have been constructing for many, many years now in our dividend, our quality dividend. Not really a strategy, something that the board decided because of different reasons, but-
... Okay. All right.
But not hard to say.
Thanks, Marlene. And Francisco, you, we have heard that potentially Grupo México is one of the companies interested in Terrafina process. So I wanted to hear from you what you know, if there's any comments from the company, any color that you can share with us. Definitely the infrastructure division has been expanding, the acquisition of Multiprana last year, and as you mentioned, expanding now into Peru. So any color will be helpful. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Carlos. What we can say is that we are continuously looking for different opportunities for the infrastructure division to grow. As you know, and you rightly pointed out, last year we started our first acquisition in the real estate industry, a commercial platform. We also like industrial real estate, and we are continuously looking for different avenues of growth. That's what we can say for the moment.
All right. It's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, press star one one to get in the queue. I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I will turn it back to management for any final comments.
Thank you so much. If you have a question later, please let us know. If-
We have one question that just popped up. Couple questions, ma'am. I apologize.
Yes, it's okay, Carmen.
Thank you so much. One moment for our next question. It's from the line of Alfonso Salazar with Scotiabank. Please proceed. Alfonso, please check your mute button.
Yes. Sorry, can you hear me now?
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. Marlene, the question that I have is more regarding the strategy of Grupo México, and what could happen with the shares of Southern Copper, the increasing shares that Grupo will receive? And is the plan to increase the position? Is the plan to maintain the position? Anything that you can give us regarding that, considering, you know, the big rally that Southern Copper shares had? Just wondering if this could be a good opportunity for Grupo México to monetize a fraction of the position there, or any other comment that you may have.
The second is, as a controlling shareholder, controlling group of Southern Copper, do you think this is something that could continue or that Grupo will be willing to continue, meaning more stock dividends instead of cash dividends ahead, basically because of the position, the cash position that Grupo already has in hand? So those are the two questions that I have.
Thank you. Thank you for your question. I think the decision of the Southern Copper stock dividend was mainly decided based on Southern Copper's decisions and needs. So as a controlling shareholder, it doesn't change our view. I don't... I think the decision is to maintain the position. It doesn't; it's not really a decision based on Grupo México's needs. It's more a decision based on Southern Copper as a listed company needs. So I would say we'll have; we'll review it, but we are not expecting to do any strange changes in Grupo México's position in Southern Copper. So I would say to maintain a position, because this is not part of the strategy of Grupo México and based on Grupo México's needs.
As you were mentioning, yes, we, we have a strong cash position, so that's why we can give dividends and continue to grow our CapEx needs, and in addition to that, continue to give dividends. Hopefully, this will continue to be the case. We're generating a strong free cash flow from all of our divisions in the operation, and so that is very good for Grupo México. And we, obviously, as you know, this is something that we review on a quarterly basis, so it depends on our cash needs, on our cash generation, CapEx needs, and that's how we decide the dividends.
So I don't know, and I don't think, I cannot tell you anything, if this is something that will continue and it's a new trend, but this was decided this time because of what I will already explained earlier today. We feel with a very strong position to continue with our tracker, dividend tracker at Grupo México level, because of the cash that we have and the cash generation that we're having from the division.
That's very clear. Thank you, Marlene.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Okay, it comes from the line of Camilla Barder with Bradesco BBI. Please proceed.
Good afternoon. Just a quick question on my side. I would just like you to explain a little more, if you could explain a little bit more the reason why you updated your guidance upward for Southern Copper, and also if you could share your outlook for production for the upcoming years, 2025 onwards, it would be great. Thank you.
Is that for Southern Copper?
Uh, yes.
Okay.
... Our guidance for production is, is as follows: for this year, 948.8 thousand tons. For 2025, 920,000 tons. 2026, 920,000 tons. And 2027, one million tons. 2028, 1,020,000 tons.
Okay, thank you. The reasons why, why you updated your guidance, upwards, it was 936 previously, now it's 948, right? Not 949.
Yes. Yes, it was a little bit lower than what we reported today. Basically, we are relatively prudent in how we are upgrading our forecast. But in this case, we feel confident that we will be able to reach the 948,000 tons that I mentioned before. And one of the reasons for that is that we will—we are seeing a much better plan execution now as than before. So, we're having that. We have the positive contribution of additional copper coming from the Buenavista Zinc and the Pilares projects. So that's why we are expecting a much better forecast for the year than what we initially planned.
Okay, thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. And again, if you do have a question, press star one one to get in the queue. One moment for our next question. It's come from Sofia Martin with GBM. Please proceed.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. Regarding the guidance that you just shared on Southern Copper, I was just wondering why would there be lower copper production in 2025 and 2026 than there is in 2024?
It's mainly due to mainly due to lower ore grades at the Peruvian operations. We're working and hopefully this won't be, will not be the case, but that's our current plans.
Okay, thank you very much. Could you just share your guidance on ASARCO, please?
Yes, Sofia, the guidance for ASARCO will be around 120,000 tons for next year.
Thank you.
All right. And thank you so much everyone for participating in the Q&A. I see no further questions. I'll pass it back to Marlene Finny for final comments.
Thank you so much again for your time and your attention, and thank you, Carmen.
Thank you everyone for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect.