This was the third. Minerva's consolidated gross revenue is about BRL 2 billion in free cash flow in the last 12 months and reflects the company's solid operational financial performance. Minerva's consolidated gross revenue came to BRL 5.4 billion in 3Q 2020, and the last 12 months, the company record was BRL 19.7 billion. We'd like to say that this accounts for the Minerva exports, which is 70% of the gross revenue in the last 12 months, which reflects high worldwide demand in Minerva's focus on beef exports. The third quarter came to BRL 554 million and a notable 22% increase over 3Q 2019, was 10.8% in the last 12 months. As a result of this performance, we have this past quarter adding to a sweeping total of BRL 583 million the first nine months of the year. Another highlight of this quarter was the strong financial position.
As of the close of the quarter, our leverage ratio, that is the net debt to EBITDA ratio over the previous 12 months, was 2.2, the lowest since 2008, and right in line with our strategy to reduce leverage and improve capital structure. Minerva Foods ended the quarter with a comfortable cash position of BRL 7.3 billion, which gives us breathing room amidst the challenges of the times and perfectly aligned with our conservative cash management strategy. Another 3Q 2020 highlight is related to the operations in our second plant in Colombia, in Vijagual plant, which can slaughter 700 heads a day, is in the ramp-up phase and expected to double operation volume in Colombia through 2021, contributing to the Athena Foods performance. I would also like to take the opportunity to highlight other recent achievements. The first one is our investment in Clara Foods.
Clara Foods is a new innovative startup in Silicon Valley and a pioneer in developing animal-free protein through fermentation. Our BRL 4 million investment in Clara Foods follows the guidelines of our venture capital fund to invest in startups and technology companies. This brings us new opportunities to Minerva. More good news. Two of the largest international credit rating agencies upgraded our ratings this past quarter, Fitch and Standard & Poor's. This is a clear reflection of reliable financial management for many years running, leading to a reduction of debt and improved capital structure. Another very important achievement, and as a result of Minerva's excellent performance in 2020, the board of directors has voted on advanced dividend payments to shareholders, representing the 25% of accumulated net profit year-to-date, BRL 138 million.
This movement, as well as the recently approved share buyback programs, underpins management's commitment to generate value for the company's shareholders. I would like to point out that with us on this conference call today, we have Mr. Taciano Custódio, Director of Sustainability of Minerva Foods. He will be discussing some of the company's initiatives and achievements in terms of sustainability, one of the pillars of our business model and our main competitive advantages. Let us move on to the next slide to talk a bit more about Minerva's operational performance this past quarter, starting with exports. Slide three. In this third quarter 2020, we strengthened our position as the largest beef exporter in South America with a market share of approximately 18%.
These numbers reflect our geographic diversification through the continent, which together with the help of our 16 international offices, gives us a competitive advantage and favorable position in global beef exports. Now let us dive down into regional export performance. For the Brazil division, Asia accounted for 56% of export revenue over the 12 months, a tremendous increase of 31 percentage points over the same quarter last year. Asia was also the primary destination for Athena Foods exports this quarter, accounting for 38% of the division's total exports. The export performance has made it abundantly clear that there's growing demand for beef in Asia, especially in China, but also for other markets such as Singapore and Philippines and Malaysia. We expect heavy growth in these markets in the forthcoming quarters. Finally, I believe it's important to stress that market forecasts continue to be quite positive.
We expect a number of very encouraging economic and market factors to positively affect our business. The first is African swine fever virus, which continues to impact Chinese pork. Bear in mind that the outbreak is not limited to China and has spread throughout Asia and parts of Europe, recently hitting Germany, the second-largest pork producer. We are witnessing changes in eating habits in Southeast Asia as a result of growing urbanization and higher incomes. We have persistent offers in some relevant suppliers, the world's biggest beef suppliers, which is Australia. This opens more doors for South American beef producers in markets in Asia and the Middle East. In light of this promising outlook, Minerva's strategy is to continue maximizing our competitive advantages to invest in innovative niche opportunities, risk management, and market intelligence to ensure increasingly more efficient and profitable commercial and logistic solutions.
We have aspired to and pursued all this while honoring our commitment to sustainability. This sets us apart for the competition and increased business opportunities. I'd now like to turn the floor over to Edison Ticle.
Thank you, Fernando. I'd like to start with slide four. Starting with the operating performance and the breakdown of the company's gross revenue by division in Q3 2020, the Brazil Division accounted for 48% of the company's gross revenue. Athena Foods accounted for 44%, and Division Trading for the remaining 8%. This quarter, we noticed a slight improvement in the Brazil plant, and thus operating capacity increased approximately five points over the last quarter, nearly 68%, the best rate thus far this year. Now, in Athena Foods, we operated approximately 77% capacity, higher than the previous quarter, and a reflection of growing export volumes to China in our plants in Argentina and Uruguay.
As a whole, the company's plants operated at 73% capacity this quarter. As mentioned earlier, these rates are still below our historic operating rates of about 80%, that are expected to remain below par for the duration of the pandemic. Finally, on the right-hand side of the slide, we've included consolidated exports by region the third quarter as well as for the 12-month period ending in September. As Fernando already mentioned, Asia is our leading export destination. Its response accounted for 42% of our consolidated exports, and China alone, 31% of total exports. In the last 12 months, the Asian continent accounted for 47% of Minerva's exports. Moving on to slide five, there was the net revenue of BRL 5.1 billion in this third quarter, 14% over the Q3. In LTM, Q3 net revenue total is BRL 18.6 billion and a 10% increase year-on-year.
An EBITDA margin of BRL 554 million. A solid 22% increase year, with an EBITDA margin of 10.5%. Let's now talk about leverage. Well, this is measured by the net debt to EBITDA ratio over previous 12 months was 2.2, the lowest ratio quoted since 2008. Despite nearly 40% appreciation of the dollar over a year-to-date basis in dollars, our leverage ratio at the close of the quarter was 1.9. Minerva's leverage ratio today reflects management's commitment to a more efficient, balanced, less burdensome, and lower-risk capital structure. This is an issue that we've been discussing and communicated since our follow-on in January, that we have done very well, we are being able to show level of deleverage way above market expectation.
I would like to also take this opportunity to point out that this quarter, there is an important warrants exercise, including those held by SALIC, adding BRL 397 million to our cash balance this quarter. We still have BRL 381 million in warrants that must be exercised by year-end 2021. Once exercised, these warrants enter our cash flow. This helps in our leverage adjusting the leverage of Minerva, so it will be reduced to two digits. Let's talk about net earnings and operating cash flow. Slide seven. We saw net revenue came to BRL 58 million after calculating for income and social taxes. Net revenue totaled BRL 583 million in the first three quarters. As Fernando mentioned, the board of directors approved an advanced dividend payment. We have accumulated a legal reserve of 5%. The amount to be paid as dividends will be BRL 0.26 per share, excluding treasury shares.
I would like to point out that following our dividend policy guidelines approved earlier this year, after a year, the year-end results, the company will complement the dividend payout considering the anticipation made on November. The dividend policy, which states that every time our leverage level measured by the net debt, EBITDA, LTM, ends the fiscal year at a level equal or below 2.5 times, the minimum dividend payment will increase 50%, from which 25% are mandatory dividends and 25% are complementary. Therefore, Minerva is anticipating part of the dividends, and by year-end, with 2020 financial results, the company will announce the total dividend value for the entire year and surely discount the anticipated amount. Minerva shares will trade ex-dividend since November 9, and the advanced dividend payment will be concluded November 13th.
This reflects not only the excellent performance, but also our solid risk management model, which has been key in reducing leverage and building a solid capital structure. This generates value to our shareholders. Let us move to our cash position. Cash flow from operations came to 955 million BRL this past quarter. Working capital came to 491 million BRL in Q3 due to a positive supply line variation of 796 million BRL. The operating cash flow for the last 12 months stands at a positive 3.6 billion BRL. On slide eight, we will now talk about free cash flow. It was positive for the 11th quarter running, totaling 595 BRL in 3Q 2020, building up EBITDA this quarter, not adjusted for non-recurring items, total 540 million BRL, and investments came to 131 million BRL.
Keep in mind that Fernando mentioned that we acquired Frigorífico Vijagual S.A.S. in Colombia, which is for a total of approximately BRL 75 million, which is included in the BRL 131 million account. Cash basis income came to a negative BRL 319 million and especially impacted our bonds interest payment. Considering a depreciated FX rate, working capital expenses totaled BRL 491 million. Excluding non-recurring items totaling approximately BRL 14 million designed to address the novel coronavirus. From BRL 2.1 million with a total of CapEx for the last 12 months, cash basis loss came to BRL 226 million, and a variance of cash flow needs came to a positive BRL 450 million. If we add these to the BRL 39 million for non-recurring items, we reach a free cash flow of BRL 2 billion in the last 12 months, a reflection of Minerva's solid economic performance.
Now we compare this to the EBITDA in the same period, and the cash flow came to BRL 2.2 billion. The cash conversion ratio comes to 95%. This means that Minerva can safely use EBITDA as a proxy for free cash flow. I think it's defined in this industry and other companies that has a conversion cash rate so high as the one that we were able to obtain in Minerva in the last 12 months, which was 95%. I will now talk about the bridge of the net debt. It was BRL 5.4 billion in the last quarter. In this third quarter, the free cash flow stood at BRL 595 million, owing to BRL 14 million for non-recurring items, BRL 397 million mainly from exercise of warrants, BRL 18 million from hedging, and the Forex variation affecting our debt, bringing our debt to BRL 291 million in this quarter.
Our debt would have gone up BRL 291 million this quarter. When we add everything up and set up the bridge, we end up with a debt that went from BRL 5.5 billion to BRL 4.7 billion by the quarter's end, even in spite of Forex depreciation totaling approximately BRL 0.16 over the previous quarter. We have continued to improve the capital structure. Our hedge policy will continue to protect at least 50% of long-term Forex exposure. We continue very well protected in our balance sheet. This will ensure that we continue delivering solid operation and financial performance. In the next slide, we'll talk about a little bit more about capital structure. As we already said, the leverage ratio, that is net-to-debt ratio over the previous 12 months ending third quarter, was 2.2, its lowest since 2008.
The company's cash position was $7.3 billion on September 30, the highest ever recorded from Minerva. This is due to a hedge policy that requires that we keep a significant part of our cash in US dollars. This is a protection when there is high volatility. Speaking about the profile, 79% of our debt is exposed to exchange rate variation, and it will come due in approximately 5 years. We have to remember that our hedging policy requires to protect 50% of our long-term FX exposure. Finally, I'd like to highlight the recent rating upgrade from both agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor's. The upgrade reflects Minerva's efforts to improve its capital structure, solid liquidity position, decrease of our leverage level, and consistent free cash flow generation, thus notably reducing Minerva's risk perception. This, of course, shows a better perspective for the risk agencies.
I would now like to give the floor to Taciano, our sustainability director, who will talk about Minerva's ESG initiatives. Taciano, you have the floor.
Well, good morning, and thank you for joining us on this earnings call. This is an excellent opportunity to review the Minerva Foods ESG agenda and how we address sustainability in South America. The sustainability at Minerva Foods is based on three main pillars. Dedication to the planet. This is reflected on ground actions to combat climate change, monitor the supply chain for social environmental impact, and pursue operational efficiency like energy management, waste management, greenhouse gas emissions, and water consumption. Benefiting our people. Our presence can be felt beyond the consumption of our products. Prosperity for all is essential to our company.
This pillar represents the dedication and commitment of the more than 18,000 families who make up our labor force, whether it's providing jobs and income over 36 cities throughout the continent, or whether it is supporting communities during the pandemic. Minerva Foods actively contributes to local and community development everywhere we operate. Finally, product quality and respect for life, a pillar that addresses the safety of the food we produce and export to over 100 countries as well as the respect and care for the animals we handle. Before we go into the challenges facing our industry, I would like to provide a little bit more context on agricultural production in Brazil. Brazil is an agricultural powerhouse and has a modern conservationist forest law.
More than 65% of the country consists of native flora, with more than 30% protected conservation area or indigenous, and more than 20% consisting of private property according to the Embrapa data. Minerva Foods has committed publicly to not employing slave or child labor and not contributing to deforestation. We have invested heavily in a social environmental monitoring platform in cooperation with NICEPLANET, and we rank top in Brazil and South America in terms of supply chain monitoring. In fact, recently corroborated in an audit by the Federal Prosecutor's Office. Our monitoring platform consists of over 10,000 farms in Brazil and Paraguay that together come to over 9 million monitored hectares in the Amazon, Brazilian savanna region called Cerrado, and Paraguayan semi-arid region called Chaco.
Through technology and monitoring, we review 100% of our purchases in Brazil for environmental restrictions and illegal deforestation against the IBAMA list and off-limit areas. We also check all our purchases against slave labor lists. You can see a sample image of our monitoring system, we can see the maps of Minerva suppliers in blue, red the occurrences of deforestation, according to the National Institute for Space Research, in green areas of environmental conservation, and in yellow, the indigenous lands. Minerva does not buy animals from supplier farms that overlaps with indigenous lands, conservation units, nor does it buy animals from suppliers whose properties are related to deforestation. By zooming in on our monitoring platform, we can identify a property that does not meet Minerva Foods sustainability criteria.
Because you can see with the supplier's property identified by blue, has restrictions related to deforestation, which means this is a supplier which is blocked by Minerva Foods system. The integration of our cattle acquisitions with geographic monitoring ensures greater security and transparency to this process. On slide six, we have an example of the report generated by Minerva Foods system containing the information that disables and blocks the purchase of animals from the mentioned suppliers. The supplier property which does not meet the sustainability criteria is automatically blocked in Minerva Foods system. Until the presentation of official documents that prove the property is regular again. In this sense, we work proactively with our own field team, guiding suppliers to regularize this property with the authority support.
The use of the best geographic monitoring tool, combined with the system's integration, and the commitment of our team, provides safety and transparency in our cattle acquisition process. Slide seven. Minerva Foods' commitment to society is reflected in the recent audit report produced by the Pará Federal Prosecutor's Office. Pará is one of the regions most impacted by cattle production. I would like to stress that this is the state government that provides the database for the audit, which ensures the transparency and authoritativeness of audits and findings, and corporate commitment to no deforestation. Minerva Foods received the best score of all large scale companies, 100% compliance, following an audit of 100% of company purchases in the first review, and 99.7% compliance following the audit of 97% of company purchases in the second review.
The NGO Friends of the Earth recently published a status report on the occasion of 10 years since the signing of the consent decrees in the state of Pará. The publication included, and we have seen, the excellent results and Minerva outstanding performance. There's no doubt that sustainability is a cornerstone for our corporate business model. One of the biggest challenges in our industry is monitoring our suppliers, especially those who make up the first links of the supply chain. In other words, those who supply the animals to our direct suppliers. I would like to give you a bit more context and show how this affects the company's food chain. In general, Minerva Foods, whose business model is geared towards the export market.
According to a study by NICEPLANET, 90% of deforestation occurs on farms no larger than 500 hectares, and 65% of the deforestation is on these actually limited to farms no bigger than 100 hectares. If we look at yields in Brazil, the cattle production on farms no bigger than 100 hectares is quite small. These farmers deliver just 36 heads per year, which directly limits the operational profitability and their ability to invest in technology to improve production systems on their farms. The very small farmers who have farms no larger than 100 hectares, they cannot qualify and cannot supply significant scale of livestock to meet the quality and safety requirements of international markets. Characteristics like maximum age, weight, pH levels, and marbling can only be ensured with investments in field health, nutrition, animal welfare, pasturing, and intensification systems.
Those that do not have enough profitability cannot get into the export market. When it comes to indirect suppliers, Minerva, once again, has proved itself a pioneer in sustainability as it pursues alternatives and seeks solutions to this problem. We are the first company to test the Visipec, a tool for tracing indirect suppliers and one that focuses risk assessment. The preliminary results of the tests applied in the state of Mato Grosso and Rondônia are very positive, with 99.9 meeting the criteria established by the indirect suppliers work group. 3,314 farms were assessed and listed as potential indirect suppliers to the three plants considering our test sample. The test using the Visipec tool is another way in which Minerva Foods, together with various players of the Brazilian beef supply chain, aims for greater transparency and safety in cattle sourcing.
Now, in the Savannah region called Cerrado, each one of the 2020 suppliers has been included in a monitoring system for the Barretos and José Bonifácio plants in the state of São Paulo, and inroads are being made with supply chains for the Palmeiras de Goiás, Janaúba plants in Minas Gerais. Our target is to have every one of the 2020 suppliers registered in the monitoring platform by December of this year. Yet another example of important advances in Minerva Foods' supply chain management. We took this beyond Brazil as well. More than half of the suppliers in the semi-arid region of Paraguay, the Chaco, are now monitored for compliance with sustainability criteria. You can read the results on an independent audit of our monitoring process on our website.
Minerva Foods' commitment to sustainability is backed by concrete actions and results, not empty promises with magical results in some distant future. We are working in the present with the best tools available, bringing everyone on board to confront the challenges to our value chain. As a final point, I would like to stress our commitment to social responsibility and to highlight our recent activities in response to the Coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic. This includes hundreds of tons of beef, thousands of PPE items, personal hygiene products, thousands of medications and hospital equipment, and leasing mobile ICUs for the cities, towns, and communities in which we operate. We have also set a BRL 32 million support fund to help our customers in these difficult times.
Animal welfare is a key pillar in the food supply chain. We treat this very seriously, we heavily invest in training our employees, updating our plants, and maintaining process certification. Proper animal management ensures better quality products and more profitable suppliers. Our plants are certified, our team is trained by top quality instructors like Dr. Temple Grandin, an internationally renowned expert in animal welfare. As I mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, Minerva Foods is an example of sustainability in South American cattle industry. Our pioneering spirit and leadership, in addition to serving as one of the pillars of our business, is supported by important partners like IFC, which is the International Finance Corporation, which is recognized the world over for pushing sustainability, governance, and social responsibility for demanding such of the companies in which it invests.
Minerva Foods is the only cattle company in Latin America that is partnered and received investments from IFC. Finally, wrapping up, I would like to encourage all of you to visit our sustainability website, which includes all the company's commitments to sustainability, as well as audit reports of our Brazil and Paraguay supply chain, our greenhouse gas inventory, the only independently audited greenhouse gas inventory in the industry, and social responsibility policies and programs that guide company operations, and of course, our sustainability report, which we have been publishing annually since 2012. We at Minerva Foods are committed to the agribusiness and are proud to produce beef, a dietary staple, in a way that is ethical, sustainable, and socially responsible so that we can supply high-quality, safe foods for our customers the world over. Thank you for your attention. I turn back to Edison.
Thank you for your presentation, Taciano. This concludes our presentation, and I will now give the floor to the operator to start the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now invite analysts and investors to ask any questions you may have. Before we begin, please bear in mind that questions in English will be made over webcast and in English only through the webcast. To ask a question, you have to press asterisk button followed by the number one. To remove your question from the list, press pound sign. The first question is from Luciana from Banco do Brasil. Luciana?
Well, good morning, Fernando and Edison. Thank you and congratulations for your results. I would like to talk a little bit about China.
They already have the expectation of this third quarter. We were very close f rom the numbers that we see in this fourth quarter, we see a margin in Minerva and not only in Athena. Athena Foods has a very high competitiveness due to the cost and the price of the cattle, because at the point of sale, they are present in markets very similar to Brazil, and they pay higher price for the products.
Ricardo, I would like to add to what Edison said. We can also talk about diversification in South America. This strategy makes it possible for us to have an arbitration and always be present with competitiveness. Athena Foods shows this. Athena with Brazil shows this even stronger. This represents more than 40% of world exports and with competitors that have a price gap significantly higher.
If you take into account that large majority of competing markets have as the grain, the base of cost, with the price of grains increasing and the way we produce here in semi-confinement and feedlots, this gives us a competitiveness which is not comparable. It shows that the Athena model and diversification of Minerva is extremely sustainable in a more sustainable world and more competitive.
Thank you, Edison, and thank you, Fernando.
If you want to ask a question, please click on asterisk 1. The next question is from Isabella Simonato from the Bank of America.
I have two questions. The first one is exploring a little bit of the cattle cycle here in Brazil. I understand that the demand has been very important to pull the price of the arroba, which is the fifth. We also see the price of the calf. Going forward, how do you see the availability in the cycle? This is my first question. The second one has to do with working capital. There was a very good improvement coming from suppliers. Can you tell me a little bit more about the quarter and looking at the fourth quarter, how this should behave? The arroba is 15 kilos.
Well, we have been talking about this for a long time. We see the cycle in Brazil since 2020 and the beginning of 2021. It's very well aligned with what we expected. Our forecast and the price of the 15-kilo called arroba has felt a high. It's very aligned to what we expected. This change in cycle, we have to focus less on the price of the cattle and more on the spread.
I always repeat this in all the calls because independent of where the price of the 15-kilo arroba is, if this can be repassed to the sales price and maintain the spread and the margin. We have shown that the situation of the imbalance of demand and supply of beef in the world has given us a bargaining power, which is very important, and we have been able to keep the margins above two digits. If we look at our data quarterly, our average in the last 12 months was above 9.5%, above 10%, at least in the last eight quarters. This shows that we have had a good bargaining power with our clients. Although the arroba, the 15 kilos, is BRL 150, has gone up to BRL 200. We have kept our margins in a very healthy level in free cash flow.
Looking forward, there is no reason to be concerned about the scenario. There is a less favorable cycle here in Brazil with some pressure, this has all been anticipated in this second semester in the price of cattle. There's no reason why we shouldn't believe that we have the bargaining power, and therefore, we can repass the prices and keep our revenue in the level of two digits. We're talking about free cash flow. Well, in the account of the suppliers, this came through a financial tool that we set up in which we have the financial institutions paying down payment with a discount up to 2% and using up to 90 days, charging between 0.30%-0.40% a month.
We earn 2% in discount and we pay 1.20 or 1.5 of cost, and we have positive effects because it helps us in our margin, because the financial cost of this goes directly to our CMV. The second benefit is the money that was in working capital that helps us reduce our indebtedness, and therefore reduces the margin plus the financial expense. With the accounting, it's very profitable from the financial point of view. We have a smaller debt and with the possibility of free cash flow. Oh, well, that sounds very clear, says the person. The idea is to keep this going ahead? Or was this only for this quarter? No, says Edison. No, it's ongoing.
This is a program that we have in place with several institutions. I don't think this is going to grow because there's a limit to purchase a site plane with a discount of this magnitude. Probably we've come to our limit. There's no reason why we should go back. We do have this gain in the third quarter, and it'll continue to be ongoing in the coming quarters.
Thank you very much. I understood your answer.
The next question is from João Soares from the Citibank.
Good morning, Fernando, Edison and everyone. I would like to understand about the long-term growth of the company. I would like to understand the situation in Australia. It was to use the know-how. I would like to understand if you're giving financing to finance the growth in Australia.
This is part of the average medium and long-term plans of the company. We have proved here that with a strong operational free cash flow, we can meet the metrics of deleveraging suggested. In fact, we're doing this earlier than the market expected, than our business plan was pointing at. If we can keep the cash generation operational as we have done in the last 11 quarters, we can reduce the leverage to a more comfortable level below twofold in a short period of time. We'll be able to comply with the dividend policy, which is to distribute 52% of the profit at the end of the year. We'll have a business growth, business plan and nothing transactional.
It's something quite specific like we did in Colombia, where you spent BRL 75 million to buy this plant, and we have a BRL +600 million positive cash flow. This is how we're going to be managing the capital. Besides the business plan, we have an estimate, which is Ian. Ian is very knowledgeable in Australia, so we're going to use all his know-how at the right moment without committing the capital price of the company. One of the fundamental points that we have a difference is also the risk management that we have. With more geographical diversity, we can have more efficiency. What we are seeing is that this DNA of Minerva for diversification and risk management does geographically diversification. I can tell you that all the plans we have or that we already had show the consistency in our plans.
Thank you very much, Edison. I would like to add the working capital, something that Bella brought up. Could you tell me how much does this represent in financial expense, the cash in this structure, looking at the analyzed cash flow?
Well, excellent. This structure is, we have the gain of the on-site discount and also the financial expense of increasing the term. Instead of reducing my CMV, I only use 2% minus the cost of the financial product. This is an operational offer. This is considered in the CMV.
Okay, thank you. That was very clear. Thank you very much, and congratulations for your excellent results.
I'd like to remind you, if you want to ask a question, please press asterisk one or star one. There's a question here from the webcast from Rafael Cama. He says, Could you talk about the BRL -64 million with the Real that was depreciated? Could you talk about the working capital of the suppliers?
The second part of the question has been answered about the foreign trade hedge. When the exchange went beyond the closing of the second quarter, we had to protect cash that was more than BRL 1 billion that we won with a hedging policy, transforming this in a call. How could we do this? We had dollars. I bought the put, and we bought puts between 520 and 540, and the exchange rate was 554, so we lost the premium. The result of the hedge was negative, and it gives a hedge of BRL 0.16 + the carryover price, which is 1%-2% per quarter. It's easy to do the accountability, and you eliminate the cost of the options that were not exercised, and I come to this small negative result in the quarter.
Although we have lost a little bit, I think the strategy was right because it brought an enormous symmetry to our position of hedging, especially after the movement of the exchange from going from four to 5.2 at the end of the second quarter. This was an impact of BRL 1.4 billion in this period. That was it. Total transparency and happy we have made NDF in a call, and these options, one, and the hedge policy continue the same way.
We are now going to close the Q&A session, and I will give the floor to Mr. Fernando Queiroz for the final comments.
I would like to close this teleconference. I would like to thank everyone and the Minerva team for their performance and their dedication in this quarter. I would like to highlight the resilience and the dedication of what we are facing this year.
I'm very happy to see that our team has new working habits in home office, keeping the same level of dedication and commitment. Focus and discipline during this period was fundamental for us to transform adversity to an opportunity. We're going to continue watching and being the leaders and with being ethical and sustainable because we believe this is the best way for value generation in the long term. Thank you very much for your interest in Minerva, and we are available for any questions or any comments with transparency, clarity, and inclusion, always generating more value for the shareholders. Thank you very much.
The Minerva teleconference is now closed. We would like to thank all of you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.