Earnings Call: Q4 2024

Feb 28, 2025

Summary

2024 consolidated EBITDA rose 28% to COP 5.1tn, with transaction gains lifting net profit to COP 7.6tn. A planned split-off and infrastructure focus shape the outlook, while El Niño pressured Celsia EBITDA and debt fell 15% YoY.

Good morning to you all. I want to thank you for your company today. This conference will be focused on presenting the financial results for Grupo Argos at the end of the fourth quarter, 2024. In this space, we have Jorge Mario Velásquez, Alejandro Piedrahíta, Rafael Vera, and director teams of Odinsa and the real estate business. Let me remind you all that in the website, you can find all the information regarding the quarter together with the presentation we will be following during this teleconference to download it. You can access many financial information, and then you can go into the report section. In addition, we are also broadcasting this conference via Space Effects. I want to invite you to move on to slide number 3 so we could start our meeting. For this, I want to give the word to Jorge Mario Velásquez, president of Grupo Argos. Thank you, Juan Esteban. Good morning to you all. I want to greet all the shareholders, investors, employees that are with us today, and want to thank you for being with us during this call. At the close of 2024, our businesses kept generating slight operational results, which has reflected in positive figures for Grupo Argos that we will be sharing up next with you all. Nevertheless, before presenting the summary of the financial results of the company and the data regarding each one of these businesses, we want to offer you an update in respect with the advancements in the split of agreement that has a purpose, ending in an organized manner the cross participations that Grupo Argos and Grupo SURA have. Last January 30, Grupo Argos board asked, to whom speaks to you, to call upon an extraordinary committee for its shareholder assembly that will be happening the next March 27, in which we will submit at the consideration of the shareholders the partial split of project by absorption, through which Grupo Argos shareholders will receive a direct participation in Grupo SURA, keeping their actual participation in Grupo Argos. Likewise, shareholders of Grupo SURA will receive a direct participation of Grupo Argos, keeping their participation in Grupo SURA. After this transaction has been submitted, and we hope, and approved to the shareholder assembly for Grupo Argos, Cementos Argos, and Grupo SURA, we will also carry out all the necessary government authorizations, including those that have to be implied by the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia. We want to emphasize that this operation will allow Grupo Argos to focus and specialize in the construction material infrastructure sector, while Grupo SURA will consolidate its strategy in financial services aligned with the business plan that have been previously announced to the market by both companies. From its side, Cementos Argos shareholders company that adhered to the agreement with the end of disposing with the day of its investment in Grupo SURA will have a share that is exclusively focused in the construction material sector. At the end of this transaction, these shareholders will be able to access through a direct exposition, both to Grupo SURA as well as to Grupo Argos. This transaction represents a key milestone that will strengthen the creation of a virtual cycle that will benefit both companies, its shareholders, and the capital market of the country. Starting like this, a new chapter for Grupo SURA, within which, as it has been constant during decades, the company will keep its trajectory of profitable growth and its broad impact vision over all the groups of interest. Without doubt, the main focalization in the infrastructure sector, driven by the end of this cross participation and supported by the developed capacity through more than 90 years, will allow Grupo Argos to keep on building deeper and broadening its scope in terms of structuring, operation, and platform management of infrastructure leveraged in an ambitious investment plan that has been executed with projects that today reach close to COP 40 trillion in the midterm. I would also like to highlight some of these. Cementos Argos will have a historic opportunity after this investment that implied the cash entry close to COP 12 trillion after the closure of this business that was closed this last 10th of February. Odinsa is advancing the execution of a broad project portfolio in Colombia that includes the expansion of El Dorado Airport with El Dorado Max project, the new Cartagena Airport, the expansion of the Túnel de Oriente in Antioquia, the road plan that is known as Conexión Centro in the coffee region, the Vía Perimetral de la Sabana in Cundinamarca, among others. These projects, in case of being approved and awarded, would represent an investment that is close to COP 20 trillion. Celsia will keep executing its expansion in non-conventional renewable energies with more than 1,000 Megawatts of solar energy in Colombia and close to 200 megawatts of wind energy in Peru, starting wind projects in the country, such as the Wind Park Carreto that is located in the Department of Atlántico. From its side, we will keep working with the real estate business, advancing the tourism and real estate projects in the city of Barranquilla, in Cartagena, and in the metropolitan area of the cities. From another side, we also want to highlight that BRC Ratings, S&P Global, confirmed the AAA rating of Grupo Argos as issuer after the signature of the split of agreement with SURA. This ratification of the risk rating reassures the robust capital structure of Grupo Argos, the favorable perspective of the businesses where we participated, and the benefits of the announced operation when we ended the cross participations with Grupo SURA. Our message for all our shareholders is clear. You could be easy on the fact that future of Grupo Argos, once this transaction is executed, it is even more promising and vigorous. As I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, this decision will be submitted to the approval of the company's shareholders the upcoming 27th of March. Afterwards, we will proceed with the regulatory authorizations in order to advance in the society split off. We estimate that we could be ending this operation at the end of 2025 or at the beginnings of 2026. The Grupo Argos portfolio today has already experimented a significant transformation, product of its most recent transactions, concentrating in infrastructure, a transit that will end with the specialization of 100% once the company stops being shareholder of Grupo SURA. On the slide that you have on your screen, we could see how the investment portfolio of Grupo Argos has transformed the last 12 months. Taking as reference the ledger values in our non-listed investments, such as Odinsa, the urban development business, Pactia, and others, and the price of our shares in the Colombian Stock Exchange, in terms of our listed investments, such as Celsia, Cementos Argos, Grupo SURA, Sociedad Portafolio, and previously Nutresa, we can see how, in respect to 2023, the Grupo Argos portfolio has valued close to COP 4.3 trillion, reaching COP 21.1 trillion. This increase is supported in the closure of the strategic transactions that we have previously mentioned, and the healthy operational performance of our businesses. From another side, the disinvestment of Grupo Nutresa and the carried out transactions in our infrastructure investments have allowed for this segment to grow, representing more than two-thirds of the company's portfolio, becoming like that a clear and defined strategic route for its specialization in the infrastructure sector. To speak about the share sale at the participation Summit Materials, I want to invite you to move on to the upcoming slide. Noting the last 10th of February, the company confirmed the definite closure of the sale of Summit Materials to Quikrete Holdings. This new step is built over the entrepreneurial spirit that has led the company to export to North America in the decade of the '50s, start deepening of our presence in that country in the '80s, and increasing the direct presence in the U.S. in the decade of 2000. Besides strengthening a strategic focus, the perseverance, capacities, and conviction of deploying talent and human capital for almost 20 years, this has been key engines for the consolidation and integration of the concrete, cement, and aggregate business in that geography. During this time, we have taken our green light to emblematic work sites such as the Mercedes-Benz Stadium of the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, Georgia, the Coca-Cola plant in Houston, Texas, the Volcano Bay Aquatic Park in Universal Studios in Orlando. We delivered our products and solutions in terms of concrete, cement, and aggregates to different operational centers such as FedEx, Facebook, Amazon, Disney, in between many other clients, placing not just the name of Argos, but the name of Colombia up high and of its professionals in the U.S. The acquisition offer made by Quikrete and accepted by the Summit shareholders reached $52.5 per share, by which the sale of 55 million shares of Cementos Argos that Cementos Argos owned in Summit represented a cash value close to $2.8 billion. This amount constitutes the materialization of the investment in the U.S. to a value share close to COP 10,000. This is higher than the price that we had at the moment of the announcement. That was approximately COP 8,500 per share of Grupo Argos. Product of this operation, Cementos Argos' board has started an exhaustive analysis to define the optimal destination of the resources with a range of opportunities that will allow to keep on tracing this history of growth and value generation that has consolidated the company as the largest Colombian investment in the first economy of the world. As a main shareholder of Cementos Argos, for Grupo Argos, the reinvestment of these resources that today represent the most valuable assets that has been managed by this holding, is an absolute priority. Because of this, we are actively and decisively working with the administration and with the board in order to ensure the best capital allocation in the construction material sector in a process that has a strategic view that does not discard any alternative that might allow to complement the geographic footprint, but at the same time should be made in an intelligent fashion in order to guarantee these resources, and in order to guarantee that these resources will generate profitability in the mid and long term for all its shareholders, including Grupo Argos. This year, transformational transactions has been supported by an astounding performance of all the shares of the Grupo Argos business group. During 2024, the preferential share price in the stock exchange increased 82%, and the ordinary shared increased 66%, while the ordinary share of Cementos Argos grew at 67% and the Celsia share grew at 24%. These increase are over the MSCI COLCAP index that recorded an increase close to a 50% during the same period. These results respond, besides our solid operational performance, to the strategic milestones that we have previously mentioned, and to a conscious and the decided effort in order to generate and transfer value to our shareholders. Within these initiatives, we want to highlight the continuity of the share repurchase program of the companies belonging to Grupo Argos, considering that the shares are still under the fundamental value, which has led us to execute more than $150 million since the beginning of the program in 2023, as the successful SPRINT program carried out by Cementos Argos. Committed with closing the gap between the fundamental value of our shares and its market value, we will keep on making everything that is in our reach in order to potentiate the opportunities that this new stage of simplification comes with. In the consolidated results, the company recorded outstanding figures product of the transformational transactions such as the asset combination between Argos USA and Summit Materials that generated a profit of COP 5.3 trillion for the company, and the agreement to disinvest the Grupo Argos and Grupo SURA participation in Grupo Nutresa, which allowed larger economic rights in Grupo SURA, besides a net profit of COP 2.6 trillion that came from these operations. This, added to the positive performance of our business and the businesses that we just went over, gave us a result that Grupo Argos closed the year with consolidated revenues of COP 15.2 trillion and an EBITDA of COP 5.1 trillion, which represents a growth of 28% compared with the same period previous year. From its side, the net profit closed in COP 7.6 trillion, and the controlled net profit closed in COP 4.5 trillion. Under the same line, looking at the financial results, the separated financial results, we could see that the year closed with revenues of COP 3.5 trillion, EBITDA of COP 3.2 trillion, and the net profit COP 2.5 trillion. All these figures double or triple whatever we had in 2023. Now, I want to invite you to move on and look at the results of our businesses in a bit more detail. This is found in the upcoming slide number 11. Cementos Argos closed the year with results that reflect the financial solidness of the company and the rigorous execution of a strategy focused in profitability. Even with a reduction of 0.3% of the consolidated revenues, which reached COP 5.3 trillion in 2024. The company achieved an increase of 2% in the EBITDA, reaching COP 1.1 trillion. And consolidated net profit that are product of the combination of Argos USA and Summit Materials, and the positive operational performance closed in COP 5.62 trillion. The focus in operational efficiency allowed to optimize logistics and operational costs, strengthening margins in key markets and driving the growth of the EBITDA margin that at the end of the year reached 21%. During the quarter, Cementos Argos dispatched 2.1 million tons of cement and 687,000 cubic meters of concrete in its operations in Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean, which represents a drop of 8% in the case of cement, and a growth of 7% in the part of concrete in respect with the same period previous year in each one of the geographies. In Colombia, Cementos Argos consolidated its leadership with the market as the supplier of 80% of great work sites in the country, with a market participation that's higher than 30%. In 2024, the dispatch volumes reached 5,349 metric tons, driven to its growth of 6% in the exports toward Central America and the U.S. Despite the fact that the total dispatches of cement in the country have deaccelerated, mainly due to a lower activity in the residential sector. It's also important to highlight some signs of improvement in respect with 2024. These are small, but they are positive at the same time. This re-energizing, together with the moderation of inflation and with the reduction of mortgage rates, should lead to a stabilization of the cement demand in the short term, and to retake its positive trend in a close by future. Also supported by the fundamental macroeconomic indicators of the country. Once the market starts its recovery, Argos will be a much more agile and efficient company, fully prepared in order to take advantage of this demand expansion in a business that is cyclic. In Central America and the Caribbean, the margins kept on strengthening, thanks to the optimization of the local plants and a focus in markets with a higher profitability. The revenues of this region reached $515 million with an EBITDA of $127 million. The implemented plans in the last years have proven their capacity of maximizing the value for our shareholders within Grupo Argos. The company has reached efficiencies in all its value chain. It has improved profitability and it has advanced the gap close between the intrinsic value and the market price of the share. Cementos Argos will keep on developing initiatives in order to strengthen its attractiveness between global investors, growing in market participation, and keep on strengthening its innovation and value generation capacity. I want to invite you to move on to the energy business results that you can find on slide number 12. Celsia closed 2024 with financial results that reflect its adaptation capacity. The consolidated revenues reached COP 6.8 trillion, which represent a growth of 9% and driven by the diversification of its electric generation sources and the operational stability of the distribution and transmission assets. During the El Niño phenomenon that in Colombia implied a reduction of the water contributions close to more than 50% during the first quarter 2024, and volatility in the contributions for the second semester of the year. The company, despite this phenomenon, was able to comply with all its contracts in terms of energy generation, and to supply the service with no interruption to its residential and industrial clients, thanks to a solid contraction policy supported with a portfolio of reliable and balanced energy generation. The year's EBITDA reached COP 1.5 trillion. This is a drop of 19% year-after-year, given to this climatic condition. We hope that this figure to be recovered in 2025 with the normalization of water conditions in the country. From its side, the net controlling profit of the company was of COP 222 billion, which proves a growth of 15%. Within the main milestones of 2024 for Celsia, we want to highlight the start of the first wind plant construction in Colombia that is known as Carreto. This is located in the Department of Atlántico with 9.9 megawatts of capacity and will start operations the same year, 2025. This project proves the potential of wind resource in regions further than La Guajira and reinforces the commitment that the company has with the development of renewable energies in the country. From another side, the company entered the Peruvian market with the acquisition of two wind project, and with two small hydrological central, aligned with its regional expansion strategy in stable and air with markets that are stable and with high development potential. One of these projects is already operating, and the other one is under construction. 2024 was also a year for Celsia to keep on consolidating its solar energy leadership, reaching a generation install capacity higher than 400 megawatts through its different operations in Colombia, Panama, and Honduras. During the year, we included 3 annual solar farms, and we advanced the construction of more than 300 additional megawatts that will start operations during this year, 2025. New technologies, such as energy storage and batteries, represent a significant advancement in terms of stability and optimization of the solar farms. That is why we want to highlight the start of operations of this system in Colombia, a parameter to improving the efficiency of the energy supply and opening a window of profitable growth for the company. In the fourth quarter, the consolidated revenues of Celsia closed in COP 2.1 trillion, which represent a growth of 27% compared with the same period 2023. From its side, the consolidated EBITDA was COP 355 billion, which represents a drop of 19%. These results obey to the 39% increase in the generation revenues compared with the same period last year, driven by positive deviations in the charge by reliability that added COP 204 billion. This is an effect of the climate variability of the end of the year. Additionally, we also found an increase in the energy sales, both in the stock exchange as well as in contract, which led to a high commercialization price average. From other operational services, the revenues reached COP 292 billion. This represents 110% over the fourth quarter, 2023. This is explained by a higher sale in the assets under the BOT contract, as described under the platform of the investments of Caoba and Laurel. In terms of the EBITDA, the company provision, a part of its outstanding loans with Air-e, which impacted the result in COP 21 billion. Celsia continues actively evaluating all the alternatives in order to guarantee the payment of this obligation in its favor. Now, I want to invite you to move on to slide number 17, where we could look at the Odinsa results. In 2024, Odinsa airports mobilized close to 52 million passengers during the year. Close to 47 million of this represented in El Dorado Airport, which traffic grew 15%, and it reached its maximum operational capacity, consolidating as the main connection hub of Latin America with largest individual mobility, even being higher over airports such as Mexico City and São Paulo. The extraordinary operational performance of these assets, which mobilizes around 70% of the Colombian air market, reflects the importance of this terminal for the connectivity, not just for the country, but also for the region. The extraordinary performance clearly shows the need of broadening the capacity of the main air terminal in Colombia. Because of this, the company keeps on advancing and investing in order to deliver the feasibility phase of the El Dorado Max project that seeks to broaden the capacity of the airport to more than 60 million passengers per year with an investment that we calculate close to COP 13 trillion, and which development should happen in the midterm. From its side, Odinsa Vías recorded an average daily traffic of 108,000 vehicles for 2024, with 3 of its assets showing growth larger than the GDP. Autopistas del Café and Túnel de Oriente mobilized 13.8 million vehicles, each one with an increase of 5% and 1% compared with the same period of last year. Pacífico 2 reached 2.8 million vehicles, growing 86%, while the Malla Vial del Meta road recorded 9 million vehicles. This is 3% more than the previous year. Likewise, the construction of the second phase of Túnel de Oriente in Antioquia advances according to schedule. This new infrastructure, that is 100% double lane, will broaden the connectivity and the productivity of the country. With investments of more than COP 2 trillion, they will not just strengthen the regional road infrastructure, but also generate more than 2,000 direct employment during its construction. Moving on to Odinsa's operational results that are found on slide 17. The road platform closed a quarter with an average of 116,000 vehicles, which represent a 6% growth compared with the same period last year. The concession revenues for the platform grew 13%, while the EBITDA for the quarter was located in COP 145 billion. The expected IRR for Autopistas del Café is 22%, Túnel de Oriente 18% once the expansion is included, the Pinta urbanization 15%, and the Midtown Road Grid 11%. In airports, which figures can be found on slide number 17 once again, the passenger traffic during the quarter reached 14 million passengers, representing a growth of 16%. During this period, Opain delivered to its shareholders through retribution and loans COP 333 billion, from which the private capital fund has COP 217 billion of these. This, at the same time, were delivered to the investor of the capital private fund. Odinsa there has 50% via contribution restitution, which strengthened the cash position of the company. This operation, which offers liquidity to Odinsa for future businesses developments, simultaneously impacted the set of results during the segment, given that the Opain redistribution reduces the asset valuation, given that it is a finite asset. This reduction affects negatively the net profit of the private capital fund, and at the same time, it is integrated in the set of results for Odinsa via participation method. Summarizing, this distribution, due to the way it was carried out, privileges the cash and places the company in a very solid position in order to develop investments such as in the water business, but it simultaneously has an accounting effect that affects the Odinsa financial results. I want to invite you to move on to Pactia's result. In the real estate business, the effective gross revenue was COP 95 billion, which represented a drop of 19% year-after-year, and the EBITDA for the quarter was COP 34 billion with a drop of 44%. During the quarter, Pactia carried out the total disinvestment of 103,000 sq m of net rentable area, which were represented in three logistical assets, by which the company received COP 353 billion in cash, and simultaneously implied the registration of an accounting loss of COP 27 billion. After executing these investments, the effective gross revenue and the EBITDA grew at 5% and at 1% respectively. In terms of the same assets for the complete years of the operational net revenue, the EBITDA grew 8% and 10% compared with the same period last year. Also, we renewed contract for 179,000 sq m. Contracts were made for 65,000 sq m during 2024. At the end of the period, the fund closed with non-hotel portfolio occupation of 94.2%. This represents a drop of 296 basis points compared with the same period previous year. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2023, commercial areas represented the largest growth of 11% in comparison with the same period previous year, followed by the sectors of offices and logistics. In the commercial area, we want to highlight the performance of Gran Plaza Lleras, Florencia, and San Antonio that reached increases of their effective gross revenues of more than 18%. In comparison with the same period last year, the sales per square meter of the same brands received 10% and 1%, respectively, which is a very positive signal in terms of activity recovery. Now, I want to invite you to move on to the urban development business that is found on slide number 19. The urban development cash flow business was COP 40 billion, and we closed 2024 with a net cash flow of COP 61 billion, which is lower than what we saw the previous year, but it is still stable compared with the average of the last five years. In terms of the recorded sales during the quarter, we sold seven plots in Barranquilla and one in Puerto Colombia, with which we completed 14 plots that have been sold during the area, in the metropolitan area, in the city of Barranquilla. We also sold more than 100 hectares of rural land lots that together with what we sold in previous periods represents a total annual saving of COP 1.6 billion for Grupo Argos. We want to highlight the disinvestment of all the land lots of Grupo Argos in Magdalena, which implies one less locality to administer with less costs. This reinforces our strategic focus in the cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena. The EBITDA in 2024 was negative. This is because in the first quarter, we carried out a deterioration of Pavas and Barú land lots, where we adjusted the disposal of Urbanism costs in order to reflect the increase that we have seen in construction costs. We do realize that the situation is just accounting-wise. This never affected the cash, and this will allow us to consider more uses and alternatives for these pieces of land. Now, I want to invite you to move on to slide number 22 in order to analyze the evolution of the consolidated indebtedness. In this area, net debt closed year 2024 in COP 9.3 trillion. This is a drop of 15% compared with the same period previous year. I would like to highlight this achievement. From the peak, close to COP 17 trillion net debt that we reached in the first quarter 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the organization has been able to reduce its consolidated indebtedness close to half, deleveraging an approximately COP 8 trillion, with the cash entry coming from the disinvestment in the U.S. The consolidated net indebtedness of the company in February 2025, this is in the negative. In other words, the company today has more cash than debt, which represents a clear example of the strength and financial flexibility that Grupo Argos counts with in order for its future strategy execution. The soundness in our capital structure allowed us to reassure the AAA rating after the split off agreement. Net, a separate net debt of Grupo Argos, as detailed on slide 25, closed the quarter at COP 1.3 trillion. This is an increase in comparison with the same quarter last year, explained mainly by the disbursement effect, during this joint OPA for the shares of Grupo Nutresa. This has already been foreseen within this transaction. Let's remember that for this operation, the company used COP 432 billion of its cash without the need of going into larger indebtedness. Because of this, when we analyze the gross net of the company, we can see that it has just increased to 7% with respect to the same period, 2023, going from COP 1.6 trillion to COP 1.7 trillion. Despite the increase of the net debt given to a lower cash, Grupo Argos keeps a net debt over EBITDA indicator that's healthy, which offers the financial flexibility that the company requires closing the quarter, with an indicator level of 1.7 times. Despite this disbursement for the OPA, the company keeps a solid cash position with investments in fixed rent of around 345 million. The results of the Grupo Argos business prove that the value generation for our shareholders is exponentially higher when it happens under the equilibrium, with the well-being of our collaborators, community development, when we care for the environment, when our suppliers grow and our customers grow, and when we carry a caution construction, and with this decided view of a better country and region. This vision and this business management was once again recognized during February this year when we were included in this S&P Sustainability Yearbook of 2025 as a result of our performance and the sustainability corporate evaluation that this company carries out on a yearly basis. This recognition that has been received by Grupo Argos was also received by our businesses in construction materials, energy, and road and airport concessions. This fills us with pride and proves once again that our business model generates value for all its groups of interests, aligning at the same time with best practices in terms of environment, social related topics, and corporate governments around the world. Further than these recognitions, 2024, this focus was translated in tangible investments such as complying with the goals that the company has around climate change. In a consolidated level, Grupo Argos has been able to reduce in a 42% the CO2 emission intensity for each million pesos that has been generated based on the baseline of 2018, consolidating a positive trend and advancing fully towards the 2030 objectives. I want to thank you for your presence, and now I want to give the word to Juan Esteban Mejía so he can help us to coordinate any doubts, questions, or queries that you might have. Let me say once again that all our team is available to answer any questions that you might have. Furthermore, we'll be open and available after this conference in order to answer any doubts, questions, or queries that you might have around our operational report. Thank you. I want to remind you that you could ask your questions to the Zoom platform in the Q&A widget. For the moment, we have the upcoming question from Catherine Ortiz from Davivienda. Can you detail the drop in Pactia, the assets, were they sold with a discount compared with their ledger values? If so, could we know what was the discount for? Bearing in mind this disinvestment from Conconcreto, what should we expect in the shareholder change towards the future with this business? Let me give the word to Alejandro Piedrahíta, so he can answer about this investment, and we could make a joint comment about the shareholder change in the capital fund. Of course. Yes, Catherine, very much. As Jorge mentioned during the presentation, for the case of ourselves, Pactia's transaction represents a drop of close to COP 27 billion. The logistics assets that were sold were basically three: the Colgate asset, the Unilever asset, and the Siberia asset. The total by which we received the cash from Pactia was close to COP 354 billion total. From those COP 354 billion total to Grupo Argos, due to repartition effects, we received cash close to COP 96 billion. The value by which this transaction was carried out for was 7.6% under the value that we had in our financial ledgers, and that's why we get this effect. The total profitability of the asset sale was higher to an 8%, and that was basically the values that we obtained product of the logistics business disinvestment. Yes, I would summarize the market realities. Obviously, they sometimes lead, and this is common in these types of businesses. We also consider this in the urban development business. With the cash provision that was down for COP 100 billion, sometimes these adjustments are recommended, or we have a sale option for certain assets. This represents cash revenue that could be used for higher profitability businesses. It's advisable many times to do so. In terms of shareholder change, let's remember that in Pactia we have a manager, where there's no change in the shareholder presence. Here is where there's a change in some of the shareholders. Obviously, the shareholders come as new LPs to the capital fund, and with Protección and the others. But the company management, Andres Bejarano, that's who does not change in its profitabilization focus. There's a swap of shareholders in the LP scheme, and this is a normal type of situation, and this also brings us to first-level institutions. So Catherine, I would say that there's no change in the strategy or in the change of orientation of Pactia. I don't know if maybe Andres would like to complement anything else. Well, Jorge, all your answers were very complete, and Alejandro's answers were also very complete, so thank you. I wouldn't have anything else to add. Perfect. We have an additional question from Catherine Ortiz, and it goes as follows: Cementos Argos proposed a high dividend for this year, aligned with the Summit disinvestment. Nevertheless, the dividend proposed by Grupo Argos had a very moderate increase compared with the previous year. Can you tell us what is going to be the destination of the resources you will receive from this dividend in 2025? If we have a low indebtedness here, you propose such a low increase? Let me give the word to Alejandro, so we could go over the cash flow. The proposal made by the board in the case of Grupo Argos dividend is considering the complete confirmation of the portfolio and the uses that the holding company needs to attend, to do something that has always been within our philosophy, and that is a permanent and sustainable growth of our dividend for our shareholders. It is clearly promising, the dividend that Cementos business is delivering. This is being done extraordinarily, because this is also the recognition to its shareholders within Grupo Argos, to the value materialization of thesis that have been following for several decades in the U.S. business. This is not the case necessarily for other businesses. For example, Celsia's dividend, according to what the board proposed, the increase is much more adjusted in terms of inflation, just plus a couple additional points. Let us remember that Odinsa does not deliver dividends. It is a growth company that is focusing on exploring new growth avenues and new projects. There is no dividend flow, nor from Odinsa and nor from the concession business towards Grupo Argos. The real estate business, as we mentioned before, has some stable flows, but these are lower than previous years. The board also considered that it is also important to keep certain initiatives for the use of the resources. First, we are proposing an 8.2% increase in the dividend. That is over inflation, but we also need to attend the payment of the correspondent taxes to the Nutresa transaction coming from previous year, which adds close to COP 430 billion. We will keep on following with this reacquisition and acquisition programs that we have had for the last years. This is a way of redistributing capital to the shareholders that want to follow this avenue, and dropping even more the leveraging of the company closer to COP 100 billion. The dividend, further than inflation, grows in real terms, but it does recognize the realities of the revenues and the cash needs of the company in order to keep, besides this, a stability and flexibility campaign or policy towards the future. This is the philosophical reason that we have behind this dividend allocation. I do not know, Alejandro, you want to complement something else? Well, no, Jorge, just to complement with a couple of figures that I believe that are important, that are aligned with what you said. If we start looking at our forecast, the way we closed our gross indebtedness last year, that was COP 1.7 trillion. This figure is close to COP 1.3 trillion. The objective for 2025 is closing debt close to COP 1.5 trillion net debt of gross net. That is going to be very close to the net debt. What this figure shows is that we are aligned with our net debt adjusted EBITDA indicator of 1.5x and gross net over adjusted EBITDA of COP 1.6 billion. This allows us to have more flexibility. Just mentioning a couple of more figures. In terms of dividends, including the extraordinary one from Cementos and the cash net that we will be receiving from the urban business, our cash will be close to COP 1.1 trillion. From there are three steps that are key. The first one, these are the dividends that Jorge was mentioning, that in cash are COP 567 billion being paid as dividends. The other important thing has to do with tax payment that Jorge mentioned, coming as product of the OPA transaction that we carried out in a certain moment. That represents close to COP 220-something billion. What this proves is that we are also thinking on a dividend that is coherent with a capital structure in order to have that financial flexibility in order to pay future dividends. From a financial health point of view, we can keep being robust with AAA rating. Well, thank you, Alejandro. We received the upcoming question from Nicolás Gómez Penagos. Good morning. Let me ask the following question. Could you give us a guide in terms of the expense behavior for the holding and product of this split off? Will you have not requiring costs, or will this be more normalized? Well, let me just make a comment that I believe that is key. This company has been doing a very disciplined and systematic effort in order to reduce the functioning expenses of the holding company. When you look at the expense numbers, and we could even drill down much more in detail, these figures conjugate two main areas. First is costs and expenses of the urban development business, that due to fiscal or taxation reasons, are within Grupo Argos. Because of this, we need to bear in mind that these expenses have a very important revenue associated to them, so that is why they should be analyzed separately as you analyze any other expenses of other business, both for Cementos, Celsia, or Odinsa. If we subtract these figures, the expenses for the holding for the last 10 years, from 2015 to 2024, have had a drop of 4.3% in real terms. This means if you had forecasted the expenses of 2015 between inflation up to 2024, close of 2024, the value of the negative delta between both figures is equal to close to 50% of the current expense that we have today. So there is a constant and permanent effort that is showing drops in terms of costs and expenses for the organization. Now, within the question, there is a very important chapter in terms of extraordinary expenses. Extraordinary expenses that Grupo Argos incurred in during the last years, within different processes such as public offering acquisitions, plus disinvestment of these assets, financial consultancies, legal consultancies, and strategic consultancies are relevant. Effectively, we expect that in 2025, that are actually budgeted for, we could keep some expense levels that are close to COP 30 billion for the materialization of all the processes that are required for the disinvestment of the cross participation in Grupo SURA. In the previous year, these expenses reached COP 31 billion. With this, I want to give the word to Eduardo Sanchez. He is with us today, so he can drill down a bit deeper on these figures. Well, thank you, Jorge. I think there is a very important message that we need to deliver to the market. With the exercise that we have been building for more than a decade from the financial VP, looking for a proper cost and expense structure of the company, adjusting ourselves to this continuous efficiency pattern that we are looking for, that we are seeking after, that we want for 2025 to have composed a -2.4% drop. We hope that for 2025, we can materialize a reduction in real terms of -3% in the expense structure of the holding. We expect that this could also be set as a new base where we could set new structural efficiencies in terms of capital structure and cash flow of the company. There is something key in terms of the sustainability of the cash flow of the group, and that is the gap between the received dividends and the paid dividends that we use in the conversations with the rating companies that we have in order to guarantee the rating that has been kept in AAA levels since 2022. Net relation between the dividends that we pay and we receive is close to 260 billion COP that are enough for paying the dividends, paying financial obligations, and paying the maintenance of the operation of the company. Right now, we estimate that we will be closing 2025 around 80 billion COP in terms of holding expenses, and this will follow with the negative trend in terms of real terms for the next five years, that in real terms will have a participation of less than 25% between this gap of the paid dividends and the received dividends. Well, thank you, Nicolás, for the question. I just wanted to remind you all that the enabled platform in order for you to ask questions is the Zoom platform. Nevertheless, we have received some questions via text that we will try to cover, and whatever we cannot cover, well, we will just organize the way we receive the questions, we could approach them after the call. Okay. Just let me see a couple of questions that we have here in the annex. Johado Giraldo asks, "Good morning. Congratulations for your excellent management. Are you looking at new investment opportunities within the countries? There has been this rumor around Cemex selling assets in countries different than in Europe and North America." Well, let me answer this question a broad way. Broadly speaking, we do keep bearing in mind new investments opportunities in Colombia. As we have mentioned during the new conference, within the concession business, we have a broad range of relevant projects that totalize close to 20 trillion COP in case all of these are materialized. Airports, roads, et cetera. In terms of energy, we are investing in wind energy plants and in the construction of a platform that has around 1,000 megawatts of install capacity in terms of solar energy. So, of course, we keep on investing in Colombia. The resources, as I said, Cementos Argos resources, because the question had been asked to do with resources. This is being analyzed, thoroughly analyzed. Looking for intelligent and profitable investment alternatives, as I said during the conference. For this, the Grupo Argos team has been working and been supported with Cementos management and situationally with the board in order to analyze the different investment options that we might have, as it has been already explained to the market. In case that we find operations and opportunities that are profitable and intelligent at the same time, we can make a redeployment of this capital in the U.S. We would look for the way of investing part or the totality of these resources in this country, if and only if they're intelligent and profitable. We won't limit ourselves nor leave options aside that these investments in adjacent material products could be also fruitful in different parts of the region. In the specific case of Colombia, I would say that given the position that Grupo Argos has in Colombia, being a little position, the relevance that it has as an actor in Colombia, there's not much sense, not from an economic point of view, and probably it wouldn't be even approved regulation-wise, buying assets of Cemex in the case that they would be sold in Colombia. So these specific assets wouldn't be of our interest in Colombia, specifically. In addition, we have an upcoming question coming from Santiago Maso. "When do you estimate the split off will come to an end for Grupo SURA?" For this question, we could go back to slide number 4, where we have a detailed schedule. Let me give the word to Rafael Olivella, that will lead us through the schedule. Okay, Santiago, and everyone that's with us, thank you. Thank you for being with us, and thank you for the question. The schedule that we have thought for is this will be taken into the shareholder assembly in March, both Grupo SURA, Cementos Argos, and Grupo Argos. If this is approved by the shareholder assembly, it will carry out all the paperwork required with the authorities. That, as Jorge Mario Velásquez mentioned, this is the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, and we hope to perfect this transaction for the end of 2025 or beginnings of 2026. So we've informed through the market, the steps of this operation are thought for this to close as fast as we can. During September, we had this joint conference with Grupo SURA. Afterwards, we worked on closing with financial ledgers separating three companies. We obtained three results without comments from the fiscal entities, and the next step is going to be the shareholder assembly. So we hope that around the end of 2025 or beginning of 2026, we could have a perfection split off, and the split off of Grupo Argos and Grupo SURA will be closed. We have all the commitment, and we hope that at the beginning of 2026, the companies will be fully split off. Thank you very much. We don't have any more additional questions in the Zoom platform, and we will receive any additional doubts, questions or queries that you might have through the channels we have with investors. Okay, so thank you very much. Once again, as Juan Esteban Calle said, we are open and available for any doubts, questions, or queries that you might have. Thank you very much, and have a nice day, everyone.