Good afternoon. Thank you for holding. Welcome to Grupo México's Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With us this afternoon are all of Grupo México's top executives, who will discuss the fourth quarter and 2022 annual results financial performance of the company, giving you a summary of the latest news, address any questions you might 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 risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. 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 U.S. GAAP.
The presentation may be followed through our webcast. If you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, you 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 the website at grupomexico.com. At this moment, I would like to remind everyone that your lines must be in listen-only mode until the Q&A session. We will begin with Ms. Marlene Finnegan.
Hi, everyone. Good morning. This is Natalia Ortega, and thank you for joining us today for Grupo México's fourth quarter earnings conference call. Sitting with me here today are the top executives from our three divisions. During our call, we will be following the presentation that usually can be downloaded from the website or followed by accessing the website. Today's detailed program can be found on slide number three. I will kick off with Grupo México's ESG highlights, followed by the quarter scorecard and financial highlights. Mr. Xavier García de Quevedo will provide detailed information regarding our mining division's main highlights, projects updates, and commenting on the industry's economic environment. He will then be followed by Mr. Isaac Franklin, who will go through the financial results and main events of our transportation division.
Lastly, Mr. Francisco Zinser will comment on our infrastructure division's relevant events which occurred during the quarter. It is customary, at the end, the line will be open for Q&A. Before going on through our results, I want to highlight that our long-term growth and investment plans, along with diversification, have proved to be a competitive advantage, as although we encountered a challenging environment and some atypical events, such as our illegal stoppage in Cuajone, most of our business units showed a steady recovery during the fourth quarter of the year, reinforcing Grupo México's resilience through troubled times. With that being said, let's move on to our ESG highlights on slide five. Reinforcing our ESG commitment, Grupo México obtained the third-highest score in the CDP assessment on climate change and water security, positioning the company above the industry.
As a result of our ESG-related performance, Grupo México improved 11% at CDP Corporate Sustainability Assessment rating during the year. By doing this, the company is positioned among the top 9% performers in the mining sector, and 50% above the average rating. Our rescue squads from Charcas in Santa Barbara were awarded by CAMIMEX and CONOCER with the first place in underground mining rescue and first aid respectively. Closing with our social impact, we began to operate Casa Grande Mobile in the communities near Fenicias Wind Farm, where diverse courses and workshops on education, health, environment, among others, were provided in five rural communities in the General Bravo municipality in Nuevo León, Mexico. Let's continue with our scorecard on slide number six. Our revenues for the year totaled $13.87 billion, representing a decrease of 6.1% when compared to 2021.
This was mainly due to a low copper price and production offset by steady revenue increases in our excellent results by the transportation and the Infrastructure Division. Also, inflationary pressures resulted in a margin from the year. Along these lines, our cash cost, which ended the year at $1.02 per pound, suffered a 22% increase when compared to last year. Our operating income ended the year north of $5.6 billion, which means a 24.3% decrease versus the last year. While our EBITDA totaled just above $7.14 billion, representing a 51.5% EBITDA margin, a 20.1% and 11 basis points decrease, respectively. Our copper production totaled just north of 1 million tons, a 7.2% decrease when compared to last year.
We were able to pump up production during the fourth quarter of last year, producing over 269,000 tons during the quarter, which means a 5.1% increase quarter-over-quarter. Our board approved an increase in our dividend, setting a MXN 1 per dividend share, per share dividend, reaffirming our strong dividend trend, which translates into roughly a 5% implied dividend yield. On slide number seven, you can find our usual summary of financial highlights in case you need it at any point during the presentation. Moving forward onto slide number eight, we wanted to show the full quarterly picture so we can highlight the strong recovery trend shown during the fourth quarter as we were able to significantly improve our financials.
As you can see, revenues increased 21.6% quarter-over-quarter, driven by a favorable metal price environment, especially molybdenum, and an increase in production. Our cost contention strategy proved to be satisfactory as we're able to strongly increase our operating income and EBITDA 51% and 46.8% respectively on a quarterly basis. Lastly, I want to highlight our net cash cost for the fourth quarter of 2022, which ended the period at $0.72 per pound, a 43.9% decrease versus the third quarter of last year. Now let's continue on to slide number nine. As depicted here, Grupo México maintains a solid balance sheet with low leverage and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.4x .
As you might already know, our debt is mainly issued in U.S. dollars, representing 80% of the total debt, while the rest is denominated in Mexican pesos. 97% of our total debt was issued with a fixed rate. On this slide, you can also see the dividend paid from 2020 to 2022 and the implied dividend yield, including the 1 peso cash dividend for the quarter approved by our board priorly mentioned. We continue to have a comfortable debt maturity profile as pictured in slide 10, with no payments of over $1 billion until 2035, and our cash and equivalent position ended the year in $6 billion. I wanna highlight that this year we reduced debt by materially $400 million. I'll let Mr. Xavier García de Quevedo comment on our mining division's performance.
Thank you, Natalia. Good morning, everyone. Thank you again for joining us today. Today I will start with some remarks on the current copper market on slide three. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the only copper price decreased by 3% on a year-over-year basis from an average of $4.40 per pound in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $3.62, reflecting concerns about a possible recession in the U.S. and Europe, partially offset by good news on the possible Chinese recovery. Current prices for copper are over $4 per pound as a more positive outlook is perceived by the market due to the following factors: A reduction in global inflation, which may slow down or even stop the interest rate hike cycle led by the Fed and the ECB.
The turnaround in China's policy regarding COVID-19 after the government embraced COVID practices. Stimulus measures have been implemented to shore up a weak real estate market. The more urban market in turn accounts for the copper market are expecting a market rebalance or a small surplus for 2023. This assumes a growth in demand of about 53% this year. Uncertainty regarding future production growth in Chile and Peru, which together represents about 10% of the global supply. Low copper inventories, which stood at 239,000 tons as of December 31st. These low inventories represent 3.5 days of consumption, an extremely low level. It is important to emphasize that copper plays a leading role in the global shift to clean energy, which correlates positively with our assertion that the underlying demand for copper will be strong in the long term.
In this scenario, we believe the current cycle of low prices will be short-lived. Now, let's continue with the main division's financial highlights on slide 13. First, I would like to highlight that in the quarter we achieved the highest production levels for the year, a strong 5% increase when compared to production in the third quarter of 2022. Despite the progress, as Natalia previously mentioned, we ended the year 10% below the production of 2021. This is mainly due to the grade locator called Toquepala Mine and temporarily lower ore grade variations as our production in 2022 totaled 1,010,000 tons of copper, out of which 230,000 tons were produced during the last quarter.
The reduction in production due to the factors mentioned along with lower copper and silver prices translated into a decrease in revenues of 9.3% over year 2022. It is important to bear in mind that 2021 is a complicated comparison as the last year result were record highs for the company. Our sales ended the year just south of $11 billion, while our EBITDA stood at $5.6 billion, with a 52% EBITDA margin. This margin compression was due to higher net cash costs, which ended the year at $1.02 per pound, 22 higher than 2021, impacted by higher production costs, due to global inflation and pressure, and an increase in effective next units produced. Despite these events, we continue to be the cost leaders in the industry worldwide.
As for our CapEx, we invested $1,044 million during the year. I would like to continue talking all of the projects and discourses on the slides 13 and 15. Let's first talk about our return short term projects. Our Pilares project is currently operational and already sending rich ores to the La Caridad SX-EW dockyard plant. We expected to produce copper ore at full capacity for La Caridad concentration in the second quarter of 2022. In the Pilares project, also located in Sonora, the construction has an 84% progress and expected to be operational by the second half of 2023. The $460 million project has a production capacity of 100,000 tons of zinc content in concentrate, and will double our zinc production while generating over 2,000 operational jobs.
In Pilares, we continue the development of engineering and infrastructure works on site. The SF0 plant APCM project has been awarded to an experienced contractor. Let's continue with our long-term projects. The Los Chancas, our project in Apurimac, Peru, continue to be partially occupied by illegal miners as of December 31st. Some of these illegal miners have irregularly registered their stakes in the informal registry of mining formalization. The company has filed criminal complaints in all illegal mining areas, and waived the claims of 23 illegal miners, with five cases still open. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the company reported to the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Peru the start of exploration activities and design the evaluation of existing mineral resources in our Michiquillay projects. As part of the support to the Michiquillay and [audio distortion]
Thank you, Xavier. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining us. Continuing with the transportation division in slide 18, I would like to talk about our financial highlights for the fourth quarter of the year. First, I'm glad to announce that during the fourth quarter of 2022, most segments showed positive variation in revenue, continuing the positive trends in last quarters. With almost all segments showing positive revenue variation for the full year as well. Although we saw lower transported volumes during 2022, a 9.3% decrease in net ton-kilometers and a 0.9% decrease in carloads, our sales, which total $2.71 billion for the year, increased 7.5% versus 2021.
The increase was mainly driven by the positive performance of virtually most of our segments, led by industrials, metals, cements and minerals that show considerable increases for the year. I'd like to comment a little bit on the main reasons for volume loss during the quarter, including the increase in the U.S. railroad generated by the lack of crews and maneuvers at destinations affected some of our segments. Likewise, the agricultural segment was affected by excess demand of fleet of U.S. grain export routes. Also, the automotive continued with lapse generated by microchip scarcity and congestions of American railways since the pandemic. The intermodal segment was affected by the lack of availability of containers in cross-border traffic.
These decreases were partially offset by growth in cars moving industrial and energy products. I am happy to say that our EBITDA totaled $1.23 billion during 2022, a 9.9% increase when compared to the previous year, and a 15.8% when compared on a quarterly basis year-over-year. This translates into a 45.5% EBITDA margin. I am particularly proud about the margin since we've been operating in a high cost inflation environment, but have managed to deliver an adequate cost control. Our net income during 2022, which totaled $482 million, saw an outstanding 34.4% increase when compared to last year. As we move forward to slide 8 to 19, you can see our main highlights for the quarter.
In most of our business units, volumes have returned stronger than pre-COVID levels, leading the positive results for the quarter and on a cumulative basis, showing a 5.1% increase in Mexican pesos on a quarterly basis year-over-year. Our EBITDA totaled MXN 6.2 billion, an increase of 10.4% when compared to the same quarter of last year. Finally, as you might already know, a 50% per share dividend was approved by our board, and we continue our share repurchase strategy with 2.8 million shares repurchased at an average price of MXN 33.39 per share.
Continuing with the main variation of our revenue on slide 20, as I just mentioned, almost all our segments showed revenue growth during the quarter, with chemicals and intermodal being the only laggards due to the decrease in fertilizer imports sparked by the Ukraine-Russia conflict and a slow recovery of the U.S. retail market. In relative terms, this quarter's top performers were metals segment, which show an increase of 30% as we saw increased demand of finished products, driving additional production and inbound of raw materials. The other segment which saw double-digit revenue growth were cement, where the construction demand is driving Mexican cement exports to the U.S. The industrial segment propelled by substantial growth of new railcar production. Although it hasn't reached pre-COVID levels.
With medium growth, we have an automotive segment increase in 5% due to the release of inventory during the plant shutdown in December. Energy with a 5% increase due to the throughput increase of domestic refineries, which resulted in higher fuel oil exports. Minerals, where an increased demand of finished metal products drove the consumption of iron ore, resulting in a 3% increase. Agricultural with a 1% increase due to the strong imports of corn and soy. Let's take a look at our operating net metrics depicted on slide 21. In general, metrics show sustained performance. We saw a good combination between a 3% increase in average train speed and a 3% reduction in dwell time. Car velocity also saw an improvement of 2% from 275 kilometers per day to 281.
Our train length saw a slight reduction of 1%. Here, I'd like to reiterate that we are working on a new master plan for 2023, where we intend to improve this by almost 10% to 12% with a similar capacity. Gross tons per train were down 2%. Additionally, we saw an improvement of 1% on crew staff. On slide 22, we can see our expected CapEx for 2023. GMXT's board approved a plan to invest $448 million during the year for maintenance, growth, and efficiency projects. This will allow GMXT to continue with the required level of investment for infrastructure and service improvements. Around 55% of yearly CapEx will be invested in maintenance, including new rail and ties, locomotive overhauls, bridges and surfacing, through which we also gain efficiency, speed, and reliability of our service.
I want to highlight our $133 million growth CapEx, which as mentioned in our previous earnings calls, probably one of the largest that we have had, where $100 million will be for fleet acquisition, focusing on containers, green hoppers, intermodal wells, autoracks, and containers. to be able to deliver the expected growth. Additionally, we are very keen on intermodal terminals, where we're expanding capacity in relevant markets. Among other important projects that will allow us to continue gaining market share, including the Monterrey Bypass. $80 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 a general overview of the Transportation Division. I will now let Francisco Zinser comment on the Infrastructure Division.
Thank you very much, Isaac. Good morning, everyone. I'll start by going through the financial highlights of the Infrastructure Division depicted in slide 24. First of all, I am very proud to say that all of the division business units in Grupo México Infraestructura showed significant growth during the year. 2022 was a year of solid performance for us, where strict cost controls, higher power generation, continuous operation and high efficiency in our oil rigs, higher production at our construction and engineering firms, and the traffic increase in our toll roads resulted in an increase of our revenues of over 19% versus 2021, totaling $664 million for the year.
Along with our revenue increase, our EBITDA, which ended the year at $269 million was 19% higher than the result of 2021, with a 40.5 margin over sales. Lastly, our net income totaled $39 million, of which $6 million were generated during the fourth quarter, representing an increase of close to 128% versus 2021. To close the Infrastructure Division highlights, I would like to go through some of our most relevant events depicted on slide number 25. I am happy to announce that over the last three years, the accident rate in our division has been continuously reduced by 47%. This is a result of the efforts of our team that has carried out with great success, where all of our collaborators work to keep everybody safe.
Our operational excellence allowed Perforadora México, or PEMEX, uninterrupted operations in all of its oil rigs during the year, with an outstanding 99.4% operational efficiency, an all-time high for the company. Reached an EBITDA of $51 million, a 13% increase versus 2021 on the same coverage basis. In our toll roads, favorable effects of increased tariffs due to inflation and daily traffic expansion of over 13% allowed the business unit to net $51 million in sales and an EBITDA of $34 million, a 21% and 34% increase respectively. Continuing with the good notes, I'm pleased to announce that for the sixth consecutive year, our engineering services company has achieved historical results, increasing net sales by 2% due to an increase in production and higher revenue recognition in third party projects.
Lastly, as we have informed before, the infrastructure division is in the process of acquiring Planigrupo, a company dedicated to the development, construction and operation of 28 power center malls in Mexico. This transaction contemplates an estimated investment of MXN 4,700 million, equivalent to $230 million, for 100% of the shares and remains subject to approval from regulators, which is expected to happen in February. This strategic acquisition will allow us to create a new business unit in the real estate industry with strong growth potential. Finally, I will let Natalia give her closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Francisco. Thank you everyone for your time. Thank you Xavier, Isaac, and Francisco for your comments. With this, we will open the line for the Q&A session, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Regina Carrillo from GBM.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on the results. I wanted to ask, do you have any color or any comments you can give us regarding the CD dynamic assets? As you know, we have been reading a lot of articles lately talking about potential bid from Grupo México. Thanks.
We cannot address market rumors. As you know, Grupo México is constantly analyzing opportunities. We cannot comment any further. That goes for the rest of the questions about this matter. Thank you.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Gabriel Simões from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for the call. Thank you for taking my questions. I know that you cannot comment on the Banamex potential acquisition, but given that there's a potential large acquisition ahead, it would be interesting to hear your views on dividend going forward, as well the optimal leverage situation that you envision for the company. That's one question. The other one regarding the mining operation. We've already discussed some of this during certain conference call, but any additional details would be interesting. With the much higher molybdenum prices that we've seen, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the supply and demand drivers for the metal this year. How long do you expect the current high prices to last?
If you think that they're sustainable for longer, and how have the negotiations been for these prices so far? Thank you.
Thank you. Hi, Gabriel. Thank you for your question. First, I'll address the dividend question. As you know, we cannot comment any further on the dynamics matter. Regarding dividends, it's the same rationale as before. Usually what's perceived as excess cash will be paid out to shareholders via our subsidiaries and also at the Grupo México level. Our ideal leverage ratio would be under 2x net as EBITDA. That is the usual threshold that we have for the company. We're well below that, so that mainly answers the question. Thank you.
Talking about the mining, as Raúl has commented during the company's third quarter operations, the [audio distortion] movement association is projected a reduction in production and an increase in the, an increase in the demand. From our mines, let us talk about La Caridad Mine. La Caridad Mine is a mine now that have a very significant resources in moly. As a matter of fact, it's a copper moly mine. Combining the moly and copper, the current copper grade is over 40%. This year, because the high price of moly, that today is about $37 per ton, we here, we will have a flexible mine planning because it is a mine very well developed in order to seek what is to optimize our revenues in this new inaudible.
All right. Thanks for your answers.
Thank you. One moment for your next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alfonso Salazar from Scotiabank.
Yes. Hello, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the question. I have two questions. One is regarding Asarco. I don't know if you can provide some comments on the strategy given the short, the tight copper market that we anticipate ahead. What are the plans to expand this capacity at Asarco? Is it something that you're considering? Any comments on that regard. The second question I have is regarding the strategy and the outlook for the infrastructure division. Many times we think of Grupo México as a mining company with a railway operation and the infrastructure is kind of lost in the portfolio.
For many years, this division was increasing with new assets, has been increasing as we speak in terms of capacity to produce energy. Just wondering what is the gain here? What is the end game? What is the plan? How do you expect to unlock value? Because this is a division that should be trading at a higher valuation than mining, for example. If you can comment on the strategy and infrastructure as well.
Good morning, this is Leonardo Contreras. In regards to Asarco strategy, basically what we see, yes, we are analyzing expansions at our mine at grade, and we're also analyzing some from our mine. As of now we're still in pre-pre-feasibility, not only we have more clarity which will be probably year and a half from two years, we will be able to announce or communicate further. It's also worth mentioning that we have been ramping up our slag mining operation at our Hayden facility, which is in line with ESG metrics and around the circular economies, we've been making progress in that sense. We're expecting to produce up 700,000 tons this year.
Just on Asarco, a follow-up. Are these expansions, you know, in, on, as, you know, are you considering a second concentrator at Ray? Is it, you know, increasing capacity at Mission or Silver Bell? Just any comment on what are the plans or what you can comment on that?
Yes. I think we are analyzing both alternatives. One is to expand our current capacity, and the other one is to find a new way to justify by our exploration department, which at the moment we haven't had that clarity to do it. We are analyzing both alternatives, but as of now we have no clarity.
Got it. Thank you.
Hi, Alfonso. This is Francisco. Regarding your question about the strategy in the Infrastructure Division, well, as you know, we are the smallest division of the group, but that doesn't mean we are very relevant in the different industries where we operate. We have almost 900MW of power. We would like to increase in the future. As you know, there have been some changes in regulation that unfortunately, make us to be very cautious about the investments that we make in the future. We know that's something that's needed in the country, and we are more than ready for when the circumstances are there to continue investing there. Same for our oil rigs.
We are the largest supplier for oil rigs for Pemex with the highest efficiency, we are the most relevant player in that market as well. We have our engineering and construction company which allow us to develop many of the businesses where we operate and where we would like to operate, such as the toll roads, where today we are not that relevant, we are looking into other opportunities to continue growth on that regard. As you know, we have also had some other business lines that we would like to grow, again, unfortunately, changes in regulation make us to be very, very cautious. We had a $1 billion investment plan to build fuel storage terminals. That project is currently on hold, waiting to see how the regulation plays out. We are.
I mean, everything's ready to develop and deploy that capital as soon as the circumstances are ready. Finally, regarding the real estate business that we're entering, we believe it's an industry with a lot of potential. We believe also on Planigrupo is our first step to enter into this market. Not only commercial, we're also taking a look at industrial, which as you know, is very much demanded because of the nearshoring in the north of Mexico. Planigrupo is not only the assets, they come with a very solid platform that can allow us to increase rapidly. We believe this could be an important avenue of growth for Grupo México Infraestructura in the near term.
As you know, our numbers this year were significantly better than 2021, we're expecting 2023 to be an even better year, somewhere between 18% to 20% better. Hopefully we can continue delivering those growths in the near future with the strategies that I have informed you. I don't know if that answers your question.
Yes. Thank you. That's a good call. The real estate segment will be part of Infraestructura. You mentioned that you want to do also real estate, industrial real estate, are you planning to do, sir?
The real estate division, starting with Planigrupo, will be under the Infraestructura division, Grupo México Infraestructura. As we always do, we are looking at opportunities in the market. We didn't... This opportunity was not a one-off. That's what I wanted to mention. We would like to see how we can improve synergies and continue growing in this segment, both in commercial and hopefully in industrial as well.
I see. Thank you very much, Francisco.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Isabella Vasconcelos from Bradesco BBI.
Hello. Good afternoon. Can you hear me well?
Yes, yes, we can, Isabella. Go ahead.
Great, great. I have a couple of questions. The first one on Transportes. Interested in seeing a kind of guidance, if possible, in terms of the outlook that you're expecting for 2023, in terms of potential volumes and margin expansion, if possible. On the infrastructure side, if you have any potential expected timeline for the final conclusion of the Planigrupo acquisition, that would be helpful as well. Thank you.
So-
It's for transportation, Isa. Did you get the question?
Yes, it's about the outlook, no? The outlook for the year.
Yeah.
Yes.
The first one for... Yeah.
Well, thanks for your question, Isabella. What we are expecting is for this year, our volume growth will be between 4% and 6%, and our revenue growth between 9% and 12%. Mainly to the recoveries on the agricultural and now that the plus ones are running in a better position.
This is Francisco. Regarding your second question, Isabella, about the timeline. As you probably know, Planigrupo is a public company. We have submitted the applications to the CNBV, Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores, and COFECE last year. We have been having different conversations with both regulatory agencies. We are expecting their approvals to happen in February, hopefully. That being the case, then we have...be cause it's a public company, we have 20 days to launch the offering. Hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, starting April or maybe May, depending on how the calendar happens, we will be taking over Planigrupo and consolidating it in Grupo México Infraestructura.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our next question comes from the line of Jean Baptiste Bruny from BBVA.
Either of you, thanks for taking my question. Just a couple left for me, basically. First, first one on mining. could you maybe come back on what happened with the molybdenum? You have sales in the fourth quarter growing 65% when production is basically down 16% and prices are 14%. Maybe if you can walk us through the details of what happened. Can you provide as well an idea of what you expect in terms of production for copper in 2023 as well as in terms of cash costs? Thank you very much.
No problem.
In 2022, copper production will be 1,048,000 tons. Moly production will be 22.2 thousand tons. However, we are analyzing the possibility, as I mentioned, with the copper-moly mine, we could easily increase this production exchange probably 4,000 tons more without affecting the copper production.
Okay, thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks.
Thank you.
You got any cash costs? [crosstalk]
Yes. Cash costs. The cash costs for 2022, 2023. Total cost is $2.20. The $0.93 of by-products credit, probably, as I mentioned before, the moly will improve our cash costs in our project, projection as of today is $1.37. With these prices of moly and probably the increase of copper price because this is $1.27 is based on the $0.80 ton of copper. We are sure we may increase this. We want to be conservative.
Thank you. One moment for your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Areli Viera from Invex.
Hi.
Can you hear?
Hi, Areli. Can you hear us well? I think we lost her, Gigi.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes, we do.
Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Regarding the uncertainty in Peru, I would like if you can give us some color of how it's going on the operations of your mines there or if there are some disruptions. I know that you are not one of the most affected, but I would like to know if there are some impacts to consider.
If you don't mind, let me answer the question. This is Raúl Jacob from Southern Copper. We haven't experienced any, well, difficulties in our operations in Peru. At certain point in time, the main road that bring in supplies has been blockaged. We had and we still have a good amount of inventories of supplies to weather this circumstance. We are analyzing other possibilities if it is necessary to bring in materials. So far the Peruvian army with the police has been unblock the main roads, and that is also applying to our, to where our operations are. Right now we have no inconvenience for our operations.
Okay. Thank you. Regarding the production, I lost it. Can you repeat me what's the outlook for the production of copper for 2023, please?
Yes. It's 925,000 tons.
Well, this is in inaudible.
Yes. I'm talking... Yes. If the question was for... I answer for Southern Copper. That's correct.
Yeah, for Southern Copper and for Asarco, I think. Can you give me some colors too?
Yes. Areli, for Asarco's production it will be 124,000 metric tons.
Okay. I would like to understand that if there are some disruptions in the mines of Peru, could it be import or the consume of the or compensate some of that production lost?
No, no. Like I mentioned, is that copper moly, the price could compensate, of course, the moly production in Peru but not the copper.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. One moment for your next question. Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos from Very Independent Research.
Thank you. GMXT bought back some shares in the fourth quarter. Could you just review what % Grupo México owns of Southern Copper and GMXT and how many shares is the public float of each?
Hi, John. Yes, sure. I'll give you the percentages. Grupo México owns about 88.9% of Southern Copper and around 70.7% of GMXT.
It's 70.7% of GMXT?
Yes, correct. That is after the merger.
Thank you.
No worries.
Thank you. One moment for your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Guillermo Diego Delgadillo from Santander.
Sure. Thanks for the time. If we consider now that Banamex Operations tangible capital is like $4 billion and the earnings are like $1.1 billion, now if you provision that with market standards, it's like $900 billion. Either way, it's like, well, adjusted basis operation of close to 10%. Versus your return equity adjusted for book value operations, it would seem that it would suggest a dilution of close to 20% acquiring those assets. The question is not commenting on the transaction, but on the project finance or treasury perspective, what are the guidelines or standards that you take into consideration when taking a look which transactions you are eager to analyze and which transactions you decline?
Hi, Guillermo. Thank you for your question. Regarding the Banamex matter, again, fortunately, we cannot comment anything on this matter. Regarding projects based on what we've historically done, we continue to analyze M&A that makes sense throughout all our divisions to continue to grow within the company with organic growth and also inorganic growth. That's how the company has managed M&A matters for the past many, many years, and that's what we'll continue to do. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Natalia Ortega for closing remarks.
Thank you, Gigi. I just wanna thank everyone for your time. If you need any follow-up, please feel free to reach out. You know where to find us and have a great day. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.