Good morning. Welcome to Minerva conference call for the first quarter 2020. We have Mr. Fernando Queiroz and Edison Ticle, CEO and CFO. After the call, we're going to open for Q&A for the investors, and then more instructions will be given. If you're needing assistance, please ask for assistance by pressing star zero. The audio and slides will be shown at www.minervafoods.com.br, and they will be available for download. Before continuing, I would like to clarify about the perspectives of Minerva, our premises, as well as information. Everything will be available. The circumstances may or may not happen. Investors must understand that there are operational issues that may affect Minerva that would lead to different results. Now we will give the floor to Mr. Fernando Queiroz, who is the CEO. He will make his presentation. Mr. Queiroz, you have the floor.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating at Minerva conference call to discuss the results for this first quarter 2020. Before beginning our earnings conference call, I think it's important to talk about the current moment and the global crisis caused by the COVID-19. We are closely following the guidelines and taking all necessary precautionary measures in accordance to the authorities, giving priority to our more important asset, our employees. We give priority to their health, and we have therefore adopted certain measures such as vacation for employees within certain operating units, implementation of working from home for the management department, and leaves of absence for employees in the risk group. That is people over 55, and women with children under six, pregnant women, and all those who are exposed to contamination risk.
We're also checking the temperature of our employees at the entrance of our factories on a daily basis and adopting social distancing measures in our operating lines. For example, in slaughter and deboning activities, as well as cafeterias. All this is to guarantee and protect our employees' safety. All these initiatives are strictly in line with the guidelines and protocols issued by authorities. We are also present assisting the needy communities. For Brazilians, we contributed, donating category of food, such as beef, meatballs, candies, and we're also donating about 20 L of alcohol gel and approximately 120,000 PPE, such as masks, gloves, bouffant caps, and protection glasses. Moreover, the donation of 13,000 of drugs and 5,000 in hospital equipment.
Minerva also leased 5,000 of ICU to assist municipal hospitals in locations where we operate, and we will donate more than 250,000 to the General Hospital of the University of São Paulo Medical School in Ribeirão Preto. Besides, we're also assisting Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and Minerva will invest more than BRL 10 million to mitigate the impact of the pandemic and support the communities where our industrial units are located. Everything we have done reinforces our commitment to society, to our employees, to our partners, and our clients in the communities where we operate in. I would like to emphasize that our industry, the food sector, is essential to the world. Everything else can stop, but not food production. Never.
Our responsibility is that we're going to continue working with dedication in the production of food to take meals and beef, so essential to the health of the communities around the world. We will now talk about the 1Q20 results, beginning on slide two with a presentation of the main highlights for the quarter. We improved on important operational fronts, always based on efficiency, ethics, and sustainable management of our business model.
We'll begin with cash flow, a priority for Minerva. Operating cash flow attained BRL 1.7 billion in the first quarter, totalizing BRL 3.2 billion in the 12 months ending March. Free cash flow was positive for the ninth consecutive quarter, attaining BRL 904.6 million and BRL 1.6 billion in the last 12 months. I would like to point to our risk management, which had a fundamental role in obtaining good financial results reported at the beginning of the year.
Consolidated net revenue totals BRL 4.2 billion in one first quarter. BRL 17.6 billion in the last 12 months, an all-time high. Making the gross revenue breakdown, 48% or BRL 2.1 billion coming from Brazilian industry division, around 43%, which means BRL 1.9 billion from Athena Foods division, and the remaining 9% or approximately BRL 406 million came from the trading division. In the first quarter, Minerva's consolidated exports accounted for 66% of gross revenue, 21% more than the first quarter. In the last 12 months, the share of exports increased 68%, reflecting the strategy focused on exports, especially on markets with greater growth potential and beef demand. The EBITDA totaled BRL 382 million. It's a growth of 16% higher year-on-year with an EBITDA margin of 9.2% for the last 12 months. Our EBITDA totaled BRL 1.8 billion, another record, with an EBITDA margin of 10.3%.
Our operational performance in this quarter reflects not only the strong demand for beef and the good moment for our industry, but also Minerva's excellence in operations management. As a final result, Minerva recorded a net income of BRL 271 million and BRL 319 million in the last 12 months. In addition to the strong operation financial performance, we wish to highlight our balance sheet. At the end of the first quarter, our leverage measured by net debt to EBITDA ratio remained stable close to 2.99x , in line with the previous quarter, despite the strong appreciation of Brazilian real. In line with our conservative cash management, we closed March with a solid cash position of BRL 6.3 billion.
It is worth mentioning our ongoing liability management. We repurchased approximately $22 million at face value in our 2026 bonds on the secondary market, taking advantage of the best moment for this type of transaction, which, considering the market volatility, came to be negotiated right below face value. In the first quarter, we consolidated our position as the leading beef exporter in South America with a market share of approximately 20%. This reflects our geographic diversification on the continent, supported by our 15 international offices, which gives us a great competitive advantage and a leading position in global beef efforts. We also maintained our position as a leading beef exporter in Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, and second biggest beef exporter in Brazil and Uruguay. Let's talk about the performance by region in further detail.
In the Brazilian industry division, Asia accounted for 42% export revenue, 16 percentage points more than the same period last year. It's also worth noting the substantial exports to Russia, which accounted for 14% of this division's exports. In Athena Foods, Asia was also the main destination of exports with 44% of the total, five percentage points more than in the first Q. I think it's important to mention that despite the global crisis we are going through, the market outlook remains very positive, and there are several factors that will have an impact in the coming quarters. The first of which is the African swine fever, which has continued to affect pork production in China. The outbreak is not limited to that country and has already spread across Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.
At the same time, there has been a structural change in consumer habits in Southeast Asia due to increased urbanization, increase in income and middle class, along with Western consumer habits. We should also mention the decline in beef production in Australia, one of our main competitors. More recently, the problem faced by India on buffalo beef exports, which give us opportunities in several markets in Middle East and Asia. We can add to this the reduction of the U.S. beef production due to the COVID-19 contamination. We still don't know the effect on global supply and demand landscape. This scenario reflects a greater market opening for South American exporters such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia. New markets and new authorizations to these countries are already a reality, as seen in the recent opening of the U.S. market to Brazil.
The authorization for Colombian beef to Russia and opening of Saudi Arabia to beef exports from Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, all in the first Q of this year. Our strategy is to continue maximizing our competitive advantages, investing in innovation, risk management, and market intelligence in order to achieve an increasingly efficient commercial and logistical solution, arbitrating in markets and permitting distortions in times of volatility that these become opportunities. I would also like to highlight the competitive advantage in sustainability practices and Unlocking opportunities in markets that value environmental protections, animal health, and social practices, distancing us from the main competitors and maximizing business opportunities. I will now give the floor to Edison, who will discuss Minerva's operating and financial highlights in further detail.
Thank you, Fernando. I will begin on slide four. Slide four, we will begin with our operational performance.
In the first Q, the Brazilian industry division accounted for 48% of gross revenue, while Athena Foods brought 43%, and the trading division was the remaining 9%. This quarter, productivity dropped slightly due to preventive measures related to COVID-19. With this, the capacity utilization rate remained at around 70% in the Brazilian division, approximately 73% in Athena Foods. As a result, the company's consolidated capacity utilization rate was 71%. We can now see the great exposure of Minerva's exports to regions with strong potential demand, such as Asia. Fernando mentioned earlier that we direct most of our exports to Asia, and this accounts for 34% of total exports in the quarter, led by China, which alone accounted for 26% of the total. In the 12 months ending March, Asia was a destination of 43% of total exports, with China alone accounting for 35%.
I will now go to slide five. On this slide, we can see the net revenue totaled BRL 4.2 billion in the first Q, up to 12% in the first Q, higher than 12% over the first quarter last year. LTM first Q 2020 net revenue amounted to BRL 17.6 billion, 70% higher year-on-year. Our EBITDA margin stood at 9.2%. In the last 12 months, EBITDA totaled BRL 1.8 billion, a new 12-month period record, with an EBITDA margin of 10.3%. Now I will move to the next slide about financial leverage. Our net leverage, measured by the net debt to LTM EBITDA ratio, was around 2.99x , despite depreciation of the U.S. dollar by approximately 30% in the period.
As we mentioned in the last conference call, we used about BRL 1 billion raised through the follow-on offering concluded in January to reduce our debt, so that our net debt totaled BRL 5.4 billion at the end of March, maintaining leverage below three times. I would like to stress that we still have around BRL 779 million to reinforce the company's cash position by the end of 2021. This amount refers to the warrants granted in the private capital increase in 2018, which should be exercised by the end of 2021. Going on to the next slide, I will talk about the net results and operating cash flow. Slide seven. The company recorded net results after taxes of BRL 271 million in the first Q.
This result reflects not only Minerva's operational excellence, but also our solid risk management model, especially in financial risk, which played an essential role in the results of this quarter. Essential to protect our balance sheet and also to keep our leverage below 3x . In the last 12 months ending in March, net income totaled BRL 319 million. Moving on to cash generation. Operating cash flow reached BRL 1.7 billion in 1Q, which approximately BRL 1.2 billion came from net income adjustments, and BRL 246 million came from positive working capital variation. In the first quarter, the impact on working capital was "other payables," in quotations, which includes advances from clients sub-items. This is not new. We always mention that the performance of this line is due to our credit policy and the requirement of early payment for the invoices of specific markets.
We have this in dollar terms. The real depreciation helped this amount to increase a lot. It is due to our incessant pursuit to improve the working capital metrics. We were able to return around BRL 630 million to the operations, resulting in operating cash generation around BRL 3.2 billion in the last 12 months. We will now move on to slide eight to discuss the company's priorities. Free cash flow. Slide eight. In 1 Q, recurring free cash flow was positive for the ninth consecutive quarter, with CapEx recorded at BRL 904.6 million, including BRL 615 million from foreign exchange hedge results. EBITDA before non-recurring items totaled BRL 375 million, while investments stood at BRL 96 million. This quarter, we had an additional BRL 35 million in CapEx, which was retained from previous quarters.
In the coming quarters, investments should return to the historical level of BRL 5 60 million per quarter. The cash financial results, excluding hedge results, was negative by BRL 244 million. Working capital returned to BRL 248 million. As I have already said, the effect of non-recurring effects is BRL 7 million in the quarter, and we reached recurring free cash flow of BRL 219 million. As a result of the FX rate volatility and benefit of our hedge policy, the hedge results on a cash basis was positive by BRL 650 million, giving us free cash flow of BRL 905 million in the first quarter.
On the same basis, free cash flow reached BRL 1.6 billion in the last 12 months. Considering EBITDA of BRL 1.8 billion, investments in maintenance and expansion of BRL 280 million are cash financial results, already including FX hedge results in BRL 538 million negative.
The working capital variation was positive by BRL 630 million , combined with the impact of BRL 555 million in non-recurring items. This reflects Minerva's strong financial performance in this period, and the free cash flow growth came to BRL 1.6 billion. Slide nine. I will talk about the net debt bridge. By the end of December 2019, our net debt totaled about BRL 6 billion. In January, we completed the follow-on offering, which raised net profits of around BRL 1 billion for the purpose of reducing our debt. In addition, free cash flow totaled BRL 905 million, and BRL 6 million from non-recurring items. As I mentioned, BRL 7 million in non-recurring items that I explained previously, expenses to combat coronavirus pandemic impact. We were also impacted by the mark-to-market of hedging instruments, non-cash, totaling BRL 536 million , and reducing our debt.
In the elevation impacted to increase the debt, we now have everything is indexed in a total in this quarter, BRL 1.8 billion. If we add everything that contribute to reduce plus the FX and our debt, our net ends in BRL 5.4 billion. That's BRL 600 million reduction in the first quarter. Once more, we reaffirm, we ratify the management's commitment to reducing Minerva's debt to gradually improve our capital structure. Our hedge policy is still in place, a protection between 50%-60% of our long-term exposure. We continue to maintain our balance sheet well-protected. We feel very comfortable, very protected. To wrap up, let's go to the final slide to talk about our debt structure. Slide 10, please. As I mentioned earlier, our leverage measured by the net debt to LTM EBITDA ratio closed. It was below 3x .
At the end of March 2020, the company's cash position stood at BRL 6.3 billion, an all-time high, giving it confidence to face this time of high volatility. As for the debt profile, currently 78% of our debt is exposed to the U.S. dollar with a duration of around five years. I would like to mention again that our balance sheet hedging policy requires a hedging of at least 50% of our long-term exposure, and this has proved to be extremely efficient to protect us against the exchange rate fluctuations. Nowadays, this number is around 53%. As promised at the end of March, we've reduced our short-term debt to 18% of total debt. It's now 18%, and this, we used proceeds from the follow-on and to amortize debt due in 2020.
The last point that I wish to comment on this slide was an operation of bond buyback on the secondary market. In March, approximately $22 million , paying around 85% of the face value. The idea is to cancel these bonds. Meanwhile, we are carrying these bonds on our cash. This obviously brings results to the company. The cancellation will be at par value, and the most important is that this is an instrument which will allow us to invest our own cash in a good rate of return, and has only occurred due to the stressed market conditions in March. Therefore, having a good cash position also allows us to take advantage of market opportunities and to improve our capital structure. We have already used this instrument several times over the last 10, 12 years.
Having a good cash position always allows us to take the opportunity of volatility situations in the market. Well, with this, we conclude our presentation, and we will now begin the Q&A session. Thank you for your attention. Operator?
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session for analysts and investors. Before beginning the Q&A, I would like to mention that questions in English should only be made via webcast. To ask a question, press star one. To remove the question from the queue, press hashtag key. I would like to hand the floor to Mr. Fernando and the first question.
Well, thank you. I have two questions. The first one is if you could mention the going-forward performance of the domestic market. We saw in the first quarter, but there's a discussion, there's an acceleration or not of the market because of the crisis. How do you see the performance of this segment? Second question, looking at the U.S., we see lots of plants are being closed down. There's a very volatile scenario, we see more exports from Brazil to the U.S.A.
This is Fernando replying.
I'll first start with the second question. The U.S. undoubtedly is a market which has very strong liquidity, and the reduction of slaughters is going to have an effect. We are shipping from Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, and the U.S. is a market that will need to import beef, not because of the slow slaughter there, but also due to the decrease of Australian exports. Australia is a great exporter of free-range cattle, this market is now open very strongly to us. There are also niche markets, like using organic beef from Uruguay.
We also serve the American market from Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. In the domestic market, what we see is a change in the channel. The channel is no longer the food, and it has migrated to retail, from wholesale to retail. It has migrated with an increase of products that are more simple, basically coming from the lower-cost beef from the front of the cattle. This has reduced the demand from the more expensive beef. The spread between the low-cost beef and the high-cost beef that we operate in our beef business was never so narrow. We believe it's going to continue very narrow. Now, for the domestic market, we think that there's going to be a change in habits, and we will continue with the lower-cost products of beef.
There is an increase in unemployment and a decrease in the income. It's natural to have this downtrend. We're going to focus more and more on exports, but we're going to keep our commitment with the domestic market, 60,000 customers that we have in retail.
Thank you, Fernando. Thiago from BTG would like to ask a question.
Good morning, Cesar and Fernando. My question is regarding the trading income. This is something in the last quarters, it had a relevant participation in the income, the revenue of the company. What is the level of revenue do you think you can generate in this period of the first quarter? Do you think it's reasonable, or do you think we should think of other income for this division? My question is, do you have any visibility about this? The follow-up is regarding the exchange hedge Edison mentioned that it's 53% long-term exposure hedge today. I just want to confirm if that is what I heard, so that I can understand the hedging level and if there's going to be a big variation.
Hello, Thiago. Thank you for your question. About the trading, I have already said in other calls that this grows less or does not grow. It depends, because it has a feature which is very opportunistic. For example, for live capital, it depends on the situation. The energy trading, we now have set up an operator to deal with it, which is so important at the moment. This is a division that does not grow very much.
Of course, it's natural that it is going to lose participation in the share because the two divisions, which is Brazil and Argentina, could continue growing and growing strong in the last quarter. The trading went from 15%- 10% in share. Honestly, I think that it will be more or less around this level. We do not see this division gaining any relevance due to the opportunistic aspect that it has in its activities. Regarding the FX hedge, I have also explained this, and I said this in a newspaper interview. We changed our hedge position in June 2018 because there was a structural change in macroeconomy in Brazil. Until 2018, we were discussing sort of in a circumstance in our board meetings what was going to be the protection that we should have as compared to the scenario and the risk asymmetries that we saw.
This happened because the cost of hedging in Brazil was very high. Until 2018, we had a cost of 12% a year, hedging all the FX debts at 12% with our cost at the time. Our debt in dollars was 8%-9%. This would imply bringing the cost of third-party capital, and the ROIC was about 18%-20%. The best situation, we would have a return, which would be zero. This was not an option to hedge all of this debt. This is why we have this risk-return approach. We want to protect the balance sheet in the situations that we saw very important asymmetry.
As of 2018, there was a drop of domestic interest rates. Especially in the United States as well, the interest rate dropped. The hedge cost went from 12% - 3% or 4%, which is far more reasonable. Also ours dropped to 6.5%. We had short debt around 10%. Our ROIC also improved. It made a lot of sense in risk reduction to have the balance sheet protected. You might say, "Well, why not 100%?" Well, for a simple reason. Our company is mostly an export company. I have assets in dollars in my balance sheet, and I have future revenues in dollars as well due to imports. If I hedge all of my debt, I would be putting the company in a situation all bought in dollar.
We want to protect, we want to bring this exposure close to zero, and not to keep speculating with the company if it's a put or call, if it's a buying or selling situation. We set up, the administration, we set up a matrix, and it determines minimum levels of hedge to protect the long-term debt in dollar. This matrix has to take into account three factors: the cost of the hedge, the level of net leverage of the company, and the total, the exposure in dollar of the dollar debt in the company. Nowadays, we have a leverage below three times. We have a hedge cost around 4%, and our exposure of long-term debt is less than $2 billion. This shows that there's an indication that we have to have 50% hedged. We may have a difference of 10%, so something between 50%-60%.
Currently, we're at 53%. The policy obliges us to have at least 50%. If you look at our balance sheet of 2019, December 31st, if you look at the assets in dollars, that is my cash in dollars, receivables in dollars, plus the NDF that I bought the long term, and all the exchange liability of the company, we were slightly in a bought position. We defined our intention. We wanted the company to be more neutral regarding the balance sheets. Of course, this gives us an advantage in operational cash flow, and it improves the exchange devaluation. This is an explanation of what we have now, which is 60%, but for the long term, it is always above 50%.
Santander Bank has a question.
Good morning. Fernando, good morning. Edison. Well, congratulations for all your hard work and all your social work that you're doing. Everybody is in a very critical situation, and it's wonderful to see you doing very positive things in the needy communities. My question is that there's an expectation that in May, we're going to start operating, others in June. Do you have orders from food service for the reopening of the operation? This is the first question. The second question is regarding Argentina. The official exchange rate is being maintained artificially at a very low rate. How do we deal with a cash situation in this situation? Is it possible to have some resources out of Argentina? These are my two questions. Thank you.
Marcel, thank you for your question. Yes, we have done hard work. We have helping a lot the needy communities, donating food and furniture, a basket of staple food, equipment for tests, and for doctors in hospitals.
We are working hard. This is part of our responsibility. I would like to highlight the work we have with our collaborators. We have revamped all the plants. We have revamped all our operations, that we use all the PPE. We use PPE everywhere because we want to protect our workers and protect the community. About the food service, we continue to supply to food service. It's at a very lower volume. We have less deliveries. What we have done is we have sort of mapped all our customers. We have given them the necessary conditions, extended the payment terms, longer payment terms for payment. We have given them support in this period. We have even informed how the state and federal government, what their guidelines are. In Argentina, we are biological assets, especially cattle, because it has a dollar value, so we can have a hedge.
I just want to add, In Argentina, what we're doing is we agree that the exchange rate they say, the official one, is very far from the real situation. What we believe was going to happen is going to be a very big devaluation and come closer to the gray market. We're going to sort of dollarize those assets. We've been doing this for some time. We're going to buy cattle and other assets and other commodities as well, which are dollarized, and they are used directly in our operations. Besides this, we are giving priority to investments that have a quick return so that we can accelerate our cash flow in assets that gives us a fast return.
According to the Argentinian regulation, we're using all the possible tools to keep all the dollarized cash or in dollars out of the country, out of Argentina. According to the law, according to everything that is officially allowed, we have been doing everything we can to protect the cash that we have generated in that country.
Well, thank you for your answer.
Luciana from the Banco do Brasil would like to ask a question.
Good morning, Fernando and Edison. My question about Brazil. I think there has been a big impact of the pandemic. Could you give us a breakdown of the markets that have been most affected? China? Middle East? What do you think is the trend for the future? The foreign market, could you comment about the pricing, what do you see going forward?
Answering this question about volume, we took measures in all the plants to adapt ourselves to the current situation. As I said in the previous question, we are decreasing our speed, and we are increasing our PPE. We're giving vacation. We're keeping everybody working from home. We are taking all the necessary health measures. Women that have children under six years old have remained at home. There is a reduction in our slaughter, and we have done this to protect our employees. This is what was done, and this is the justification of the reduction of the volume. We are slowly, gradually coming back, but without decreasing the focus of our protection to our employees. The rate of our capacity is a little bit lower than in the past. Regarding exports. Exports have now started when the countries have opened up their economies.
There's a very clear relation. When China started to get out of the lockdown, we saw China coming back, and it's now practically normal. This is in China. In Europe is the region that most suffers. Scandinavia, Germany, and the north of Europe, especially, they had a more stable position. Exports are flowing according to the lockdowns relaxing. It's what we said here in Brazil, a trade down with a lower and a change in channels for the food service to retail. This movement we see in Brazil is exactly the same what we saw in China and in Europe and what is happening in the U.S. This is a standard of behavior, of conduct, and we are improving in terms of product and how to do, and do what would be necessary from the food market to the retail market.
Thank you.
Good morning.
Thank you for your question.
I have two questions. One is more a follow-up about exports. With these exports, we will have more allocation for exports because Brazil, in the retail, with a mix which is a little bit worse than food service, so a bigger allocation for exports. My second question is regarding working capital. We can imagine that during the year, we're going to have a similar pattern. Do you think there's going to be working capital along these lines?
The answer to the first question is yes. We take these decisions weekly, as we have a beef desk for each origin. During the daily beef desk meeting, we decide whether we're going to sell in the domestic market or export, including we decide to where we're going to send each kind of beef cut.
The profitability in exports will, if they continue improving, from here, if it's going to improve a lot, it will stay here. We will export more. We already have 68%, but we can increase. The second question about working capital. The working capital is, as we export more, you have more need of cash, because cash for exports is longer. Depending on the market that we increase and the credit risk, our credit policy can go from 10% - 100%, depends on the customer. Depending on the market and customers, we can minimize. The working capital was a prepayment account. The advance, there's also the exchange rate. Everything is paid and maintained in US dollars. I have the counterpart, which is the increase of this advancement given to the customers. Thank you. Good morning. I would like to know about food services in China.
I would like to know if it has already picked up again?
I'm sorry. I cannot. The sound is a bit bad for this question. Well, I'll start answering your second question. We have protocol. COVID-19 is a reality. It is here to stay. Probably we're going to have employees that will be infected. We already have models to minimize. We have mapped employees who are married to doctors, nurses. We have all this mapped so that we can have a risk management of all our employees. Yes, we are prepared for a greater contamination in all the plants. Regarding food service in China, it is picking up. It is the industry that is most affected. It's one of the industries that's going to take more time to go back to normal. Yes, we are going back.
All our chains of food service and international chains and global chains, we have a thermometer. We're very close to everything that is happening. There is a food market, but it's not sort of full blast as it was in the past. I think this will take more than a year to go back to what was the situation we had before this pandemic.
We have three questions from webcast. One is from Monica. I will translate it to Portuguese. What is the percentage of income costs and CapEx are in dollars?
The income is around 68% of the cost directly in dollar. It's maritime freight, which is something less than 4%. Regarding CapEx, I would say that one-third, around 30% of CapEx, can be considered in dollars.
The second question is from Natalia from the Crédit Agricole. She says, "Could you give me more details about a positive part of the hedge?"
Well, we stand in our release, the result was 851 million BRL, one part of non-cash. It comes from the derivatives that we have in our balance sheet. At the end of 2019, we had $850 million in NDFs. When it depreciated in 1.10 and we pay 1% of carry in a quarterly way.
The next question is from Roger Burt Jones from Insight Investment.
What is the price that you did the buyback of $21 million?
Well, we made several purchases in the market. We bought from $82-$89. Our average was above $85 of the value.
I would like to remind you that if you want to ask further questions, please click on star one. As there are no further questions, I will now give the floor to Mr. Fernando Queiroz for his closing remarks.
Well, before Fernando makes his comments, I would like to make an announcement. That Minerva was confirmed as a Bovespa weight as of May with a weight of 0.22% in the Bovespa index. This is a big success for us due to the liquidity that it brings for our shares. I will now give the floor to Fernando for his final remarks.
Well, I would like to congratulate everyone, all of the Minerva team. This index is one of something very new. This is the fruit of all our work and the increase in capital, making the company more liquid. I would like to close this teleconference. I would like to thank all the Minerva team for the performance in 2020.
It was a very special year, and this is a special fortune. I would like to thank you all for your dedication. I'm very proud to know that our team has discipline and with new habits and with new skills, we kept all of us working with the same level of dedication and with an extreme flexibility to deal with all the problems. It's one more challenge that we're facing together and the way that we have always led our business, with grit and determination, without fear of facing adversity.
This is our DNA. We are alert to the different opportunities in the market of beef. We continue going ahead, restating our commitment with discipline and capital, with practice using ethics and sustainability, and we believe this is the best way in the long term. I'd like to thank all at Minerva. I'd like to thank all of you for your interest in Minerva, and we are available for any questions or explanations. Thank you very much for your time.
The conference call is now closed. We thank you all for your participation, and have a good day.