Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Armac's conference call to discuss results regarding the third quarter of 2024. For those who need simultaneous interpretation, we have this tool available on the platform. To access, just click on the Interpretation button through the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your preferred language: Portuguese or English. For those listening to the video conference in English, there's an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on Mute Original Audio. We would like to inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's IR website, ir.armac.com.br, where the complete material of our earnings release is available. We would like to inform you that the participants attending the conference call will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation.
We will then open the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, projections, and operational and financial goals constitute beliefs and assumptions of Armac's management, as well as information currently available to the company.
Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and refer to future events that therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could affect the company's future results and could lead to outcomes that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Here with us, we have Mr. Fernando Aragão, Armac's CEO, Cássio Castardelli, Armac's CFO. Now, I would like to give the floor to you, Mr. Fernando Aragão, Armac's CEO. You may proceed, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking part in our conference of earnings results. First, on October the 5th, our company completed 20 years of its foundation, and we are very proud of it. So I would like to congratulate everybody who is part of our history, some of them that have been with us for more than 20 years. Thank you very much for each of your contributions. As of 2024, it has been a good year for us. Internally, we understand it to be a year of improvement in the processes and the governance with important organizations for the company to get prepared for future growth. In the midst of all those initiatives, the fact that we reached BRL 170 million in profits that corresponds to the full year of last year is very satisfactory.
It's a growth of nearly 40% in the first nine months of the year. It's a company that continues growing in 2024 at very accelerated growth while being able to implement improvements which are necessary for the future growth of our company. So I believe one quarter, one year is not enough to talk about the strategies and capital allocation for the companies. But in spite of all this, I see that our strategy is very assertive with long-term growth, with a company that has the ambition to be a compounder and not a company of only allocation of capital of high quality. It's a company that invests in businesses that will grow in the next 20 or 30 years. I believe that our strategy is very assertive and will provide us with the results. Our capital structure ended the quarter very well organized.
The leverage level of the company has reduced at a level that the management understands to be correct. Very long, elongated debt, especially after we issued the debentures and a very high level of cash that allows us to take opportunities in the markets as they come up. So this is the capital structure that we're going to have, and we'll be a differentiator for the company. This is what I would like to share in my introduction, and I'll turn the floor to Cássio Castardelli for him to discuss the financial results.
Good morning, everyone. Starting on page three, we ended the third quarter of 2024 with growth in revenues and results and with record numbers. Our rental fleet, including Terram, exceeded BRL 3 billion, and we surpassed the number of 11,200 assets. CapEx completed in the third quarter was BRL 218.4 million.
Gross rental and service revenues total BRL 470.8 million, 26.4% higher than the third quarter of 2023. And total gross revenue was BRL 547.7 million, 38.8% higher than the third quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA was BRL 198.9 million, 13.8% higher than the third quarter of 2023. And rental and services EBITDA was BRL 185.8 million, 10.1% higher than the same period in 2023. Rental margins remained constant, and we added EBITDA both in rental and services and in new growth avenues. Finally, net income was BRL 60.8 million in the quarter, 27.1% higher than the income in the third quarter of 2023. The accumulated net income up to the third quarter of 2024 already exceeds that of the full year of 2023. Moving on to page four, we present the evolution of the total fleet in units.
We reached 11,258 assets in the third quarter, already net of used machine sales, including more than 300 assets of Terram. On the right, the CapEx of BRL 218 million. This includes the amount of BRL 65 million committed to the acquisition of 65% of Terram, of which BRL 33.6 million has already been paid in the third quarter. The remaining balance will be paid in four semi-annual installments starting in January 2025. We would like to note that Armac has the right to purchase the remaining 35% at the end of 2028, as well as the sellers have the right to sell the remaining 35% on that same date. On page five, we present the evolution of revenue. Gross revenue from rental and services grew 26.4% compared to the third quarter of 2023 and 11.3% compared to the previous quarter.
Sales of used assets grew, and the participation in consortiums also added to the revenue. On page six, we present the Adjusted EBITDA of rental and services and total EBITDA. The adjustments refer to BRL 2.7 million of non-recurring expenses with the discontinuation of projects and costs with the reduction of structuring operations, part of the initiatives to improve profitability, mainly in rental operations with services. Margin remained at 44% this quarter, with a positive outlook. Both the effect of reductions and discontinuations of lower margin projects and the dilution of costs due to growth coming both from CapEx from this and from the previous quarters have not yet been 100% captured in this quarter and will have a positive impact on the following quarters. On page seven, we present the net income, which totaled BRL 60.8 million with 12.2% margin, a growth of 20.7% over the previous quarter.
Operating cash flow was high, totaling BRL 156.3 million, with an EBITDA to cash conversion of 84%. It was driven by the lower working capital consumption and higher results compared to the previous quarter. On page eight, we present the ROIC of 20.6% and adjusted ROIC of 30.6%, both higher than the previous quarter. ROE also rose to 18.9%. Growth is the positive effect of specialized services and new avenues of growth, such as the consortiums and Terram. Finally, on page nine, the debt profile. We concluded the quarter with a net debt of BRL 1.7 billion, which represents 2.2x EBITDA, slowly lower than the previous quarter. In addition to cash generation, we consider Terram's contribution to the indicator, as well as the responsible management of our leverage.
The amortization schedule below does not yet reflect the recent debenture issuance in the amount of BRL 1 billion, which was settled in October, and that made the profile even longer. For the first time ever, we reached 10 years of amortization in one of the series of this debenture, with the company's lowest historical spread and one of the lowest. With this, I close the presentation and hand the floor back to the operator.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We are now going to start the Q&A session. We'd like to remind you that to ask questions, you must click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen and write your question. To get in line, when being announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen. And then you must unmute your microphone to ask your question. We kindly request that the question be asked all at once. Let's move on to the first question from Lucas Esteves, sell-side with Santander. You may proceed, sir. Ask your question, please. You may proceed.
Good morning, Fernando, Cássio. Congratulations on the results. Fernando, I would like to talk about what you commented in the message from the management when you focused on specialized services and use rental as a complement. Since the IPO, we saw the company was focusing on spot and on rentals as avenues for growth. How would this affect the perspective of growth for the company down the road, and how will those affect the margin? Thank you.
Thank you, Lucas, for the question. My father founded the company 30 years ago, and in 2013, my brother and I joined the company in order to be on board of the growth phase.
We were born in this market, so we know the realities of everyday challenges, so less for the client. Since then, we had identified that simple rentals that we refer to as spot, you know, those leases with no determined term, had different differences which are important in Brazil. And those differences can also be seen in other markets which are being developed, not only in Brazil. And that made us to see that no company managed to compound capital doing this using machines and equipment for a long time, not in Brazil and not abroad. So we entered into services agreements in 2014, and this is how we saw the future.
In order to have a differentiated return, especially in countries such as Brazil, we needed to develop our value proposition, deliver some additional steps in the production process so that this additional complexity would create barriers, entry barriers, so that we could grow with different pricing aspects, regardless of the environmental aspects and circumstances that we see at the moment. What happens in the rental market in Brazil is because the interest rates are very high, the cost of capital is very high, by the way. The companies have a tolerance to old machines, which is quite significant and may limit the capacity to purchase new equipment and machines. And simple leasing is invoiced by means of a document, an invoice. And maybe those who are not in the business may not understand what I'm saying, but an invoice is not a simple document.
This is not what we do. It's not a service invoice which is integrated with the revenue service and everything. Because the invoice is simple and not integrated with the fiscal aspect, we have a level of informality in the rental dimension. Informal competitors may have an advantage over the major companies. Sometimes they pressurize the prices down. Considering these dynamics, the spot, does it mean that spot business is not a good business? No, that's not it. The thing is, when you buy equipment and machines, you have to buy with advantages in price, which has to be significant enough to compensate for the other difficulties, such as high interest rates and the level of informality. Not always those opportunities come up. Historically, in some moments, the company is differentiated when we provide rental services.
For example, sometimes we compare an important fleet with FX, which is different. Sometimes the fleet can be very competitive due to the FX changes. But this is not a dynamic of a company that is a compounder, a company that can allocate capital at a rate similar to what it allocated for a long time. So we always had a preference for developing a service portfolio that started back in 2014. We had different shares in the mix of the company because along the 10 years of our journey, in some aspects, we purchased machines at a price that we understood at the time that we would be very competitive at this spot dimension, even considering the competition. And this is not something that happens at all times.
So my vision is that we have to look in an opportunistic way, wait for the right moment to allocate the right capital at the right moment. And we have to understand that this is not something that we are going to do on a consistent basis in the long term. As to services, because of the entry barriers and also considering the engineering, the know-how that we have, you're able to compose capital organically and inorganically when you explore new lines of services or when you go deeper into the lines you already have. So the strategy of the company is this. We have a model that allows us to grow sustainably, and we also touch upon the spot and services, and we accelerate the business.
We can never force ourselves to buy machines to grow at X% every year at the spot because if a company does this, we would have not very good allocations throughout time. I hope I answered your question.
Fernando, yes, you did. Only to add, in terms of a strategy, would it change in terms of your vision for the future or how you're going to use the asset until it's depleted? Or if you're going to sell it before the asset is depleted?
Now, on the contrary, nothing changes. The spot absorbs equipment with equipment which is older. And the competitors may have some machines that are 30 years old.
And we have this combination in the company, and this is a merit for us because when you are looking at a machine that was acquired eight years ago and is already depreciated, even when we consider those peculiarities that we see in the market, it's still going to have a competitive edge to be operating at the spot market. So all the machine that we have been using in order to grow with a specialized way, in a specialized way, these are machines that are going to be used for the spot strategy. Many of the agreements, because we assume the responsibility for the production, we have older machines. I don't mean to say that all the machines are going to migrate to the spot market, but some of them do.
Okay, perfectly. I understood. Thank you very much, and congratulations again.
Thank you, Lucas.
Our next question comes from Gabriel Frazão, sell-side analyst with Bank of America. Gabriel's question is in relation to the contract mix. Considering the yellow line, competitive environment, and the structure that you have, is the company comfortable with the mix of agreements it currently has?
Thank you for the question. We don't have a target mix. We are a company focused on generating value to the shareholder, investing right with a margin of safety. And we have to feel very comfortable with the return the investment is going to bring. In relation to the previous question, we understand the acquisition price of the equipment, depending on the specific circumstance, will offset or will compensate all the factors that are typical of the reality in Brazil. Considering all those circumstances, we make investments in this category of business.
What I meant to say is that this is an investment that you will not rely on to happen every month. So you have to have an opportunistic view. We have flexibility. We are a company, and most shareholders have a very long-term view, especially my family. So if there are opportunities, spot segments may increase. We do not have a target mix, but we are very resilient in terms of revenues with the long-term contract of services. So resilience is always our objective, but the spot mix may vary upwards or downwards depending on the circumstances, which is in relation to the 25% that we have today.
Our next question comes from Andre Ferreira, sell-side analyst with Bradesco.
Could you explain better the breakdown of consolidated margin versus rental? What's the perspective of growth for a consortium? What would be a normalized margin for the business, and how can it leverage the leasing strategies?
Good morning, Andre. Thank you very much for the question. When we talk about the margin to be observed of the company in terms of profitability, it's important for us to separate what is the business margin, rental and services margin, which is at 44% in the presentation. It's a margin that was at 44%, which is the same level that it stood in the second quarter. There is an adjusted EBITDA of BRL 2.7 million of non-recurring expenses due to the reduction of expenses related to some agreements. So there was a divestment and estimated demobilization of some of those amounts. So we consider this block of contracts related to services and rental. And there is also the consolidated margin. This consolidated margin is impacted by the addition of new sources of growth.
For example, we have the addition of consortium participation, the addition of services and Terram, which has a different characteristic, and this has a very good positive in the ROIC because the capital is lower proportionally in terms of the margins of the business and profitability. Because this is related to your question, those expenses associated with improvement of profitability have not yet started to show a gain in efficiency, and it hasn't reached the scale that we expect in terms of total CapEx of the previous periods, so the margin trend is very positive. We are not going to provide the guidance on what we're going to reach on a quarterly basis. As Fernando said, we are not going to be focused on the next quarter, but we are going to be focusing on the long term.
We stand at 44%, as I said, and gradually we are going to gain efficiency from the improvement in the operations already existing and also in association with the growth, the compounding that I said overhead and other costs. I hope I answered your question. I'm available.
Our next question comes from Matheus Sant'Anna, sell-side analyst of XP. We are going to open your microphone for you to ask your question. Matheus, you may proceed.
Good morning, Fernando, Cássio. Congratulations on the results. I have a question focused on Terram. I would like to know what's your expectation for the next quarters? Which are the areas that will have improvement, and how do you see the main leverage to create value for the company? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Terram is a company that has been in operation for 40 years and has a very clear goal for its clients. That is to provide the plateaus with the earthworks already completed with a level of excellence, which is very high. And they deliver this to the clients so that they do not have to contract this part of the works together with other aspects. So you have time to install a data center or a structure in fewer times. While the earth-moving activities are being performed, the client can contract the executive projects, which are activities that take a long time. Sometimes, and this is a gain of time that may take two years so that your plant can be operational, or if your logistic warehouse can be in operation, this is very relevant to the clients.
It's a company that creates value to the client and appropriates part of this value by making a fair value pricing. So this is a business model that we enjoy. We like to invest in this kind of model, and this is something that we go after in terms of specialized service and also what we do internally and in an organic basis. That was what we did with Terram. We have a great relationship with the partners there, and they are the best operators of this type of business in Brazil. And they will be with us working together for a long time in the future. And the idea that we have is to help them, providing them with Armac's main competence, which is related to the maintenance of the fleet so that we can extend the useful lives of their special assets.
And also, Armac's fleet can help Terram to help them complete their own project. So these synergies are already operating. There will be no integration of the companies because the company has its own strategy. What we're going to do is to boost the operation of the project and also within the aspect of maintenance, always in the works. We are very confident that this is going to be a very good investment, and we are sure we are going to grow together, generating value not only to our shareholders, but also to our partners and shareholders of Terram.
This is a long-term cycle, long cycles, major projects with high investments, and the results are not seen in short term. It's a long cycle, and as the years go by, I'm sure that the result of this investment will materialize. Thank you for the question. I hope I answered your questions.
Thank you. Yes, it was very clear.
Our next question comes from André Mazini, sell-side analyst with Citi. We are going to open your mic, and you can ask your question. You may proceed, sir.
Hi, Fernando, Cássio. Thank you very much for the call. I have a question in relation to the consortium line, which has been growing quite a lot in the margin. So if you could talk about it. So you mentioned a project with Vale and Rumo, and it's a line that Armac shares the control with some other projects. This is how I understood it. So the control is shared. So as to equity method, can we expect a growth for the future?
André, thank you very much for the question. In relation to the business model, I'm going to answer your question, and then I'll turn the floor to Cássio for him to talk about the accounting aspects. Along our journey, we believe that in order to have returns operating with machines, we have to have entry barriers. It's not just purchasing equipment and rent it, as I started to say, as I said in the beginning of the company. I've been operating in this business for 10 years, and along the way, we create processes, accountability units. Consortium is seen as an opportunity for us to test a model that may become a business unit in the future. What we do is basically the following. We are talking about major infrastructure works with private clients and major construction companies because they do not have their own fleet.
They look for partners in order to rent those fleets for the execution of the works. So the search for partners has been involving an addition of competence and skills so that we can be differentiated in terms of price and brands so that we can compete with the informal market. So what we have seen in the spot market is that we have been adding value and selling this value to the final client in those major works. Oftentimes, the client expects a guarantee of their own fleet from the contractor so that they expect that they will have an important corporate share in the consortium. So, as to the consortium, we developed one form of developing or participating in the project of a railroad project of the long term.
So, we are the exclusive renters of these machines, and we have machines there, the assets in the long-term contract because we have the guarantee that we are going to be with them up to the end of the works. And we have a strategic approach to avoid default rates. So we are always minority shareholders. We do not share the control of the works. Our partners are the ones responsible for executing the works. They are the ones who take the engineering risks. They are the technically responsible for the works. We invest capital by means of the machines and equipment with guarantees and specific competencies and skills associated with the personnel, human resources that we developed over time and also with finance so that the cash control can be very effective so that the performance can be guaranteed. So this is what I mean.
We are involved in two projects. The idea is to test this business model. We are not going to involve any other before we consolidated internally all this approach, and the accounting of the performance, as to the accounting of performance, I'm going to turn the floor to Cássio for him to give more details.
Thank you, Fernando. From the viewpoint of how we look at this from the accounting viewpoint, we use the equity method, and as was said, we are minority shareholders or minority owners. So the management of the works are not Armac's responsibility. However, from the viewpoint of the composition of what would be a joint project, so according to the law, we have to see it as we have to apply the equity method, and then the consolidation will be at proportional terms.
From the accounting viewpoint, it is the control of corporate control, even though it has the characteristic of being managed by the contractor, depending on the performance of this project, and this is how it does. There is a curve related to the measurements of the evolution of the works and the number of machines and, let's say, how much of our part is consumed according to the evolution schedule and also considering the percentage of the works, and this is recognized along the time, so this is not something linear, so it's proportional to the curve of the work's evolution. There is an exponential upward movement in the beginning, then there is a stabilization up to the end of the project, so we can give more information if you want, if you need more information, we can provide them.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you.
Our next question comes from João Pedro Franco, sell-side analyst with Morgan Stanley. We are going to open your microphone for you to ask your question. You may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Cássio, Fernando. Thank you very much for taking my questions. We have two questions on our side. One is a follow-up on the consortium-related question. In fact, my question has already been answered, but I would like to understand those two projects that you have today. What would be the duration and how long are the contracts? And the second question, since the last conference call of the second quarter, there has been an interesting change in domestic scenarios such as interest rates. So how will this impact your growth plan for the future? What can we expect for 2025? Maybe we'll have a lower growth and the work focused in internal activities. Okay, thank you.
Hi, João. Thank you for your question. As to the consortiums, considering that we are giving a step ahead in the chain, we can ensure that we're going to be in the works from the beginning to end, so there are projects that are going to last up to two years, so for two years, we're going to have a spot rental income for the period, and we will have the additional margin that comes as a result of the project. These are projects that may increase along the way. Additional services may be requested, and maybe those two years may be also extended. As to the scenario, economic scenario, for a long time, we have been conservative in terms of capital structure, so nothing has changed in the previous period, from the previous period.
This is why we said that we have a target of around two times the EBITDA in terms of leverage and the decision of not being very daring in the investments so as not to affect the target, not before a cycle of interest rate is stabilized in Brazil. There is a risk in the economy in general. This still our mindset. We are going to maintain the leverage around 2x the EBITDA. We already have a cash operation capacity, which is very significant. Even if we decide to invest the operational generation of cash, I mean, so how this can affect our net debt, we are still going to have a relevant growth. This is how we see. We want to maintain the leverage at conservative levels while the scenario does not change in a concrete manner.
Okay.
Our next question comes from Pedro. Our next and last question comes from Pedro Tineo, sell-side analyst with Itaú BBA. We are going to open your microphone for you to ask your question. You may proceed, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Most of my questions have already been answered. If I could talk about the margin perspective, he said that for the future, we are likely to have some improvements in terms of EBITDA margin in association with cost control and some projects. If you could provide more detail, I would appreciate it.
Okay. Thank you, Pedro, for the question. Well, we experienced a year with many internal projects with lots of maturity. We are a company that grew very fast in the past few years.
We started last year with the implementation of the new RAP that will allow us to have more control in the budget cycle that starts in 2025, so our budget discipline tends to bring in efficiency and improvements. In addition, we had improvements in terms of design, organizational design, the way the areas relate within the company. We saw lots of improvements in this area and incentives in the financial area so that each person will have the autonomy to make decisions within their own areas within Armac. I would like to mention those two improvement fronts, and I understand as a CEO, this is going to bring important efficiencies next year. Discipline, detailed data, monitoring the budget, and ERP made this possible, and a better structure with financial incentives is that we'll generate more accountability focused on the results in the company.
So I do believe that we have major chances to have efficiency improvements. Having said that, I would like to stress that this is a company that grows, being entrepreneurial, developing lines of services. And we believe in the model because we do not have long-term returns if we simply purchase and rent the equipment. In the value proposition, you have to find the opportunities to create entry barriers and to offer additional services. And along the process, we come across companies that have low margins but high ROIC. And as a CEO, I'm focused on ROIC than the margin or EBITDA yield and not EBITDA margin. So how much I have yield according to the investment. And this matters more for the business unit and for the company as a whole than the absolute margin.
Sometimes you can have an EBITDA margin of 20%, but the ROIC may be 40% because there's no capital employed. And with the know-how, you can get to high income. So I try to protect all those business units internally from any pressures on the EBITDA margin. In absolute terms, we are focused on ROIC, EBITDA yield, and not EBITDA margin. And all units are to be as efficient as possible. So the margin, we will have positive margin along the time. So whatever comes up may lead to a different dynamic. The margin may increase as a result of a different mix. So this is associated with the business model of the company, which is not simply renting machines and equipment, but rather developing specialized services.
Thank you. Perfect, Fernando. Thank you very much.
The video conference results regarding the third quarter of 2024 is closed. The Investor Relations department is available to answer any other questions you may have. Thank you.