Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Minerva's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Release Video Conference Call. Joining us today are Mr. Fernando Galletti de Queiroz, CEO, and Mr. Edison Ticle, CFO and IRO. This presentation is being recorded and simultaneous translation is available by clicking on the interpretation button. If you are listening to the video conference in English, you have the option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on mute original audio. The presentation is available for download at ri.minervafoods.com in the Presentations tab. During the company's presentation, all participants will be on a listen-only mode. The question- and- answer session will begin once the presentation is concluded.
Should you wish to pose a question by audio, please click on the Q&A icon, type in your name and affiliation, and when your name is announced, a prompt to unmute your microphone will appear on the screen. Please unmute your mic and proceed with your question. If you wish to ask a question in English, please do so in writing by clicking on the Q&A button and typing in your question. Please note that statements that may be made during the video conference call regarding Minerva's business prospects, operating and financial goals, are based on projections by the company's management, which may or may not materialize.
Investors should bear in mind that political, macroeconomic, and operating factors may affect the company's future and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. To begin the earnings release video conference for the fourth quarter 2025, I will now turn it over to Mr. Fernando de Queiroz, CEO, for his presentation. Please go ahead, Mr. de Queiroz.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Minerva Foods Earnings Conference Call For The Fourth Quarter and Full Year of 2025. Minerva has concluded 2025 delivering robust operating and financial results, thereby reaffirming a consistent and disciplined execution of our business strategy. Once again, the company has demonstrated that geographic diversification is a key pillar of the operational and commercial execution of our business model, reducing risks, maximizing our arbitrage capacity, and strengthening our corporate strategy as the largest beef exporters in South America. In Q4 2025, our gross revenue totaled BRL 15.1 billion, with our EBITDA reaching BRL 1.2 billion and an EBITDA margin of 8.2%.
We posted record gross revenue for the year at BRL 58 billion and EBITDA added up to BRL 4.8 billion, the highest ever recorded over a 12-month period. One of the key highlights of 2025 was the completion of the integration of our new assets well ahead of the original schedule. This further strengthened our diversification and enhanced our ability to capture arbitration opportunities across markets, both of which are critical in a highly volatile market environment. Let's turn back to our fourth quarter 2025 performance on Slide two. As I mentioned previously, gross revenue reached BRL 15.1 billion in Q4 and BRL 58 billion in the year, a new record for a 12-month period. Exports accounted for 60% of consolidated gross revenue, both in the quarter and for the full year ending in December.
These results once again highlight the importance of exports as one of the Minerva Foods' key operating drivers and attest to our ability to capture arbitrage opportunities across markets, supported by efficient access to a broad destination base through our South American production platform. Beyond international markets, it is also worth noting that our domestic operations benefit from our ability to arbitrate across sourcing regions, enabling us to optimize margins and enhance profitability. Minerva's geographic diversification with facilities across multiple South American countries significantly increases our operational flexibility. These dynamics underscores the strength of our business model and the company's ability to capture value in both the international and domestic markets. Net revenue in the fourth quarter, 2025 was BRL 14.2 billion, while full-year revenue reached approximately BRL 55 billion, marking yet another record for a 12-month period. Turning now to our operating profitability.
Fourth quarter EBITDA totaled BRL 1.2 billion, with an EBITDA margin of 8.2%. For the full year of 2025, Minerva Foods' EBITDA was BRL 4.8 billion, an all-time high for the company, which corresponds to an 8.8% margin. As a result of this robust operational and financial performance, net income for Q4 2025 was BRL 85 million, bringing the full-year net income to approximately BRL 848 million. Another record performance achieved in 2025. Moving to cash performance, which remains a key priority for the company. Free cash flow reached a significant BRL 1.5 billion for the year. Reflecting Minerva Foods' operational and financial excellence throughout the year. As for our capital structure, we ended the quarter with net leverage of 2.6x net debt over EBITDA.
This result is in line with our ongoing commitment to strengthen the company's capital structure and reiterates the financial discipline that guides our management. Still on the balance sheet, we concluded the fourth quarter with a solid cash position at BRL 15 billion, providing us with both security and flexibility to navigate market challenges. Edison will be providing further details on our financial performance in a minute. Let's now move on to Slide three with further highlights from this quarter. Throughout the year, we made significant progress in managing our financial liabilities, including the repurchase and cancellation of approximately $587 million, or BRL 3.2 billion of our 2028 and 2031 bonds since the beginning of 2025. This initiative reiterates our commitment to a more balanced and efficient capital structure, reducing financial costs and strengthening balance sheet flexibility.
I would also like to highlight the resumption of dividend distributions in 2025. As a result of the successful integration of new assets and our strong operational and financial performance, the company continued to optimize its capital structure, reducing leverage over the course of the year and creating room for balanced return of capital to shareholders while maintaining a healthy capital structure. In December 2025, we paid out BRL 162 million in interim dividends. Following the closing of the fiscal year, we are now proposing to the annual shareholders meeting, which will be held in April, an additional BRL 30.8 million in complementary dividends, bringing total shareholder distributions related to fiscal year 2025 to approximately BRL 193 million. Turning now to sustainability highlights, we achieved major milestones in 2025.
As a result of the robustness and technical rigor applied to our traceability and social environmental monitoring processes, Minerva Foods achieved 100% compliance in the unified audit conducted by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office on cattle supply in the Amazon biome. We also achieved 100% compliance in the social environmental audit of cattle purchases in our Paraguay operations for the sixth consecutive year. We also made progress in improving the energy sustainability of our operations. By the end of 2025, we completed the acquisition of 98% of Irapuru II Energia shares, a self-generation project based on clean and renewable photovoltaic energy, which can supply electricity to nine industrial facilities in Brazil. This initiative makes a direct contribution to Minerva Foods' decarbonization efforts, while also providing greater predictability to electricity costs.
For the fifth consecutive year, Minerva Foods was included in the ISE and ICO2 indices, the two leading sustainability benchmarks in the Brazilian market. This is an important recognition of Minerva Foods' initiatives and commitment to corporate sustainability and reflects our adherence to best ESG practices, with sustainability being a core pillar of our management model. Let's now move to Slide four and take a closer look at our export performance. At the top of the slide, we present the breakdown of gross revenue by destination for Q4 2025. The Americas led with a 35% share of gross revenue, with Brazil and Chile contributing 20% and 6% respectively. Asia followed, accounting for 23% of the period's revenue, with China as the main destination at 14%.
Next, the Middle East accounted for 14% of gross revenue, followed by NAFTA at 12%, with the United States accounting for 99%. I would also like to highlight the importance of domestic markets, particularly in Brazil, which increased its share from 17% in Q3 2025 to 20% in our current revenue mix. The continued strengthening of our brand and the expansion of our footprint in the domestic market have secured our presence with consumers supporting sustainable growth in local operations. The charts on the bottom left show export performance of our beef operations in Q4 2025. Asia was the main destination, accounting for 38% of export revenue in the quarter, the highlight being China with 30%. NAFTA ranked second with an 18% share, driven almost entirely by the United States at 14%.
This was followed by the EU and the Middle East, each with 11%, and the Americas with a 10% share of exports. Looking at the full- year figures, Asia remains the leading destination, accounting for 35% of exports, with China representing 27%. NAFTA comes next with 24%, led by United States at 19%. This is followed by the Americas with 11%, the Middle East with 10%, and the EU with 9%, Eastern Europe with 7%, and finally, Africa accounting for 4% of our export revenue. On the right-hand side of the slide, we present the export profile of our lamb operations in Australia and Chile. In Q4 2025, NAFTA remained the main destination, accounting for 40% of exports, with the United States at the largest market at 38%.
Asia follows with 33%, Europe with 13%, and the Middle East with 6% of exports in the quarter. Looking at the last 12 months ending in Q4 2025, the picture remains largely unchanged. NAFTA leads with 43% of export revenue, followed by Asia with 27%, Europe with 17%, and the Middle East with 6%. Let's now move to Slide five to take a closer look at revenue performance. International markets continue to play a leading role in our performance. Exports accounted for 67% of gross revenue in the fourth quarter and 66% last 12 months, excluding the others division. Looking at this by operation, Brazil exported 70% of its production in the quarter and 64% on an LTM Q4 2025 basis.
In all other time operations excluding Brazil, exports represented 61% in the quarter and 68% over the last 12 months. A similar trend was observed in our lamb operations in Australia and Chile, where exports accounted for 67% of gross revenue in the quarter and 71% on a last-12-month basis. On the right-hand side of the slide, we show the breakdown of revenue by origin. Brazil remains the main operational driver, accounting for 57% of gross revenue, both in the quarter and on an LTM basis. Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina each contributed with 10% of revenue in Q4 2025. On a last-12-month basis, Paraguay stands out with 11%, followed by Uruguay at 10% and Argentina at 8%. Australia accounted for 5% of revenue both in the quarter and the year, while Colombia contributed with 3% in both periods.
Finally, the others line related to the trading division represented 5% of revenue in the quarter and 6% for the full year 2025. Before moving on to the financial highlights, I would like to emphasize our optimism as we enter 2026 and the opportunities we see in the global animal protein market. The imbalance between supply and demand continues to create a favorable environment for South American beef exporters, as we have highlighted in recent quarters. This dynamic is primarily driven by cattle cycle constraints in key producing regions. While South America continues to expand production and increase export volumes, several major volume markets are facing supply limitations amid still resilient domestic demand. This has supported elevated price levels and driven imports higher, particularly coming from our continent.
As discussed in previous quarters, supply constraints persist in the U.S. market, where herd levels remain under pressure, significantly impacting domestic beef production, a scenario that is expected to continue over the next coming years. More recently, Europe has also begun to feel the effects of the global beef supply imbalance. Key producers such as France, Germany, Ireland, and Poland are facing challenges related to herd size and domestic production, which is already being reflected in export trends. In Asia, China remains the leading market with strong demand and firm pricing. I would also like to highlight our strong position in the Chinese market, supported by access through approximately 19 approved plants across Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay, a direct result of the benefits of our geographic diversification strategy.
Overall, the global demand backdrop for beef remains favorable, even amid geopolitical uncertainties, supporting positive prospects for exporters in our region. In this context, Minerva Foods stands out for its ability to capture arbitrage opportunities across markets, reinforcing our competitive position in a highly volatile environment. Before I hand it over to Edison, I'd like to reiterate our geographic diversification strategy as one of Minerva's key competitive advantages.
This approach allows us to mitigate risks, react quickly to market changes and volatility, and preserve our competitiveness even in a challenging global environment. This solid strategy underpins the consistency of our results and supports our long-term vision, in which large-scale production can be successfully combined with environmental stewardship, technological innovation, and value creation for society. With that, I'll now turn it over to Edison, who will walk you through the financial highlights for the quarter.
Thank you, Fernando. Let's go to Slide six. Starting with net revenue, which reached BRL 14.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025. This amount represents a 33% year-over-year increase. On a last-12-month basis ended in December, net revenue totaled BRL 54.8 billion, a 61% increase compared to the previous year and the highest level ever recorded in the company's history. Now, speaking about our profitability, EBITDA was BRL 1.2 billion, representing a 24% increase compared to the same period last year with an EBITDA margin of 8.2%. I would like to highlight the excellence in operational and financial execution that Minerva has delivered over the past quarters, even in the face of a highly complex and volatile global environment.
On the last-12-month basis, consolidated EBITDA totaled BRL 4.8 billion, a new record for the annual period, reaching a margin of 8.8% in 2025. I would like to highlight that once again, we delivered a positive operational performance aligned with our historical profitability levels. This result reflects the consistency of our business model, especially the gains provided by our geographic diversification strategy, a key element for the resilience of our operational and financial performance, particularly in a recent environment of high volatility. Additionally, the effective completion of the integration of our assets meant that we did face challenges, but it also led to a step up in revenue and EBITDA levels over the past year, which allowed the company to achieve records in these metrics.
With the extremely successful integration, we were able to capture synergies, especially in our operations, which led to efficiency in cost dilutions too. Moving to Slide seven, let's talk about financial leverage. We ended the quarter with a net leverage of 2.6x net debt to EBITDA. This result mainly reflects two key factors. The first is consistent operational performance, with EBITDA continuing to reach historical levels every quarter with record performance for the full year. This result reflects not only the positive environment in the global beef market, but also the integration and effective contribution of the new assets.
As a consequence, we have the second element that contributed to the strong compression of the net leverage on a yearly basis, which was the significant free cash flow generation in 2025, BRL 1.5 billion, which contributed materially to the reduction of the net debt on a yearly basis, confirming the efficiency of our financial management and the continued focus on converting results into cash. Together, these factors demonstrate the company's commitment to operational efficiency, financial discipline, and especially long-term value creation. The deleveraging journey reinforces the strength of our balance sheet and the consistency of our capital structure, which is increasingly balanced and sustainable. Let's discuss net income and operating cash flow.
Net income was positive at BRL 85 million in the quarter, and on a full- year basis, net income reached a record level of BRL 848 million, reflecting more efficient operational and financial execution, as well as the contribution from the operation of the new assets. Now we can see the operating cash flow for the quarter, which was positive at BRL 954 million, with the last 12 months totaling approximately BRL 4.7 billion in operating cash flow. On Slide nine, we discuss free cash flow generation. Looking at the buildup of cash flow for the fourth quarter, we start from an EBITDA of BRL 1.2 billion.
Next, we have a working capital consumption of BRL 598 million in the period, mainly driven by inventory buildup dedicated to the North American market, in line with the strategy of capturing stronger prices throughout 2026, and also due to the variation in the other accounts payable line in the last quarter of the year. There was a significant reduction in customer advance payments. Continuing with the cash flow buildup, we recorded CapEx of approximately BRL 391 million, mainly focused on maintenance, investments and organic expansion projects. Our cash financial result was BRL 591 million, and therefore we ended the quarter with a cash burn of BRL 408 million. Moving to the analysis of the last 12 months, full year 2025, free cash flow was positive at BRL 1.5 billion.
We start from a record EBITDA of BRL 4.8 billion, a cash financial result of BRL 3 billion, CapEx of BRL 1.2 billion, and a working capital release of approximately BRL 895 million throughout the year. As a result, on a consolidated basis, we achieved free cash flow generation of BRL 1.5 billion for the year. These results demonstrate the excellence of the company's operational and financial performance, which since 2020 has accumulated approximately BRL 9 billion in free cash flow generation. Let's understand the bridge of our net debt. At the end of the previous quarter, net debt totaled BRL 11.8 billion. In the debt bridge, we had a cash burn of BRL 408 million in the quarter, which contributed to increasing debt levels.
We also had the negative effect of foreign exchange variations, which increased debt by BRL 356 million, as well as approximately BRL 34 million related to non-cash impacts. In addition, we had the impact of the payout of BRL 162 million in dividends at the end of December. Finally, the effect of BRL 2 million related to the use of subscription warrants during the fourth quarter, naturally reducing our net debt. Therefore, we reached net debt of BRL 12.8 billion at the end of this period, just shy of BRL 3 billion lower than the BRL 15.6 billion level at the end of 2024. As we have seen throughout the year, Minerva's management has been working toward a more balanced balance sheet with a lower risk profile in face of the huge market volatility.
This is aligned with our commitment to improving the company's capital structure. On Slide number 11, we discuss our capital structure. As mentioned earlier, net leverage measured by net debt to EBITDA ended the quarter stable at 2.6 x, even after the payout of BRL 162 million in dividends at the end of 2025. Following our conservative cash management approach, we ended the fourth quarter with a comfortable cash position of BRL 15 billion and a debt duration of approximately four years, with about 81% of our debt in the long term, as you can see in the amortization schedule at the bottom of the slide. Now, speaking about our debt profile, approximately 68% of our debt is exposed to foreign exchange variations.
I would like to remind you that we strictly follow a hedging policy that requires the company to maintain at least 50% of long-term foreign exchange exposure hedged. Now, speaking about some recent liability management initiatives, in November of last year, we performed a buyback of almost $76 million of the 2031 bonds. In 2026, more precisely in January 19th, we exercised the call option of the 2028 bonds for everything that was outstanding in the amount of $166 million. More recently, in March, we carried out another buyback of the 2031 bonds in the amount of $36 million.
Considering 2025 and the beginning of 2026, we already bought back and canceled approximately $586 million in bonds or about BRL 3.2 billion, which reduces our debt in line with our liability management strategy. This should continue throughout 2026, in line with our goal of continuing to deleverage the company, improving the capital structure, reducing our risk profile, and strengthening our balance sheet. Let's go to Slide 12, where we'll discuss our results. We'll also discuss market expectations at the beginning of 2025. You may recall that at the beginning of 2025, we established a net revenue guidance in the range of BRL 50 billion-BRL 58 billion for the full year.
As you can see, the company reached the upper half of that range, delivering approximately BRL 55 billion in net revenue for the year, the highest level ever recorded in our history and representing a strong growth of 55% compared to the previous year. This strong performance reflects not only the positive environment in the global beef market with strong demand and attractive prices, but especially the success of Minerva Foods in completing the integration of the new assets, accelerating utilization levels, expanding volumes, and especially expanding profitability through commercial and operational synergies as well as expense dilutions. The speed and accuracy in the integration of the new assets were key to achieving the revenue guidance proposed at the beginning of the year. In the next slide, we'll be able to see what we achieved compared to the average market expectations at the beginning of the year.
On Slide 13, I would like to recall what market expectations and perceptions were in the first months of 2025. As we can see here, market consensus was for net revenue of around BRL 46 billion, EBITDA of approximately BRL 4.1 billion with an 8.7% margin, and net income of BRL 286 million. When we look at cash flow and leveraging metrics, expectations were for a cash burn of BRL 787 million, ending the year with a net debt of BRL 15.8 billion and leverage at 3.9x. Well, I believed that everything we have discussed throughout this presentation and in the last quarters shows that the company's actual performance was quite different.
Just to recap, in 2025, Minerva Foods delivered net revenue of BRL 55 billion, 19% above consensus and in line with the guidance announced at the beginning of the year. EBITDA reached BRL 4.8 billion, 20% above estimates, and we reported net income of BRL 843 million for the year, almost four times higher than the first market expectations. Looking at leveraging and cash flow metrics, we see the main differences. While consensus expected a cash burn of BRL 787 million for the year, the company delivered a free cash flow generation of approximately BRL 1.5 billion. In terms of debt, we reduced our level to BRL 12.8 billion, nearly BRL 3 billion below initial market expectations, even after the recent payout of BRL 162 million in 2025.
As a result of this combination, our net debt was reduced, as well as our leverage. We started the year at 3.7 x, and market expectations were that this leverage would increase to 3.9 x. However, we ended 2025 with leverage at 2.6 x at a much healthier and more balanced level, which should continue to improve downwards in the coming quarters. Also, if we see more flexible monetary policies in Brazil, this will help us even further to achieve a bigger cash flow generation in 2026 to end the year at a much lower debt level compared to the beginning of the year.
This performance confirms the success of our strategy during the period, with the integration process completed well ahead of schedule, even relative to the most optimistic expectations, even compared to what we expected in-house, which allowed us to accelerate volumes and revenue, capture synergies more quickly, especially at scale, and have a more efficient dilution of our expenses, maximizing our cash generation capacity and profitability during the year. With the completion of the integration process in the second half of 2025, the company achieved a better level of performance with normalization of operations.
Looking at the assets that we bought, we can see that the annualized revenue of these assets are around BRL 16 billion, with an annualized EBITDA in the range of BRL 1.4 billion-BRL 1.6 billion, significantly exceeding initial expectations at the time of the acquisitions, mainly relative to what 99.9% of market analysts believed, if not 100% of them. I even believe that these numbers prove that we knew exactly what we were doing and what the potential of appreciation was for these assets. We had long conversations about the value of these acquisitions and whether we were paying too much. Maybe it was expensive or maybe it was too expensive.
We can see that we paid an amount that we thought was fair and that still gave us space to extract value from it and for it to add to our company, considering our valuation when we had the opportunity to make these acquisitions. It is worth noting that there are still opportunities for efficiency gains and improved profitability going forward. With the capture of additional synergies and the clear benefits arising from the integration of the operational footprint, which naturally expand the company's arbitrage opportunities, which are even more important in such a volatile environment. Just to remind you of our key strategic drivers, we have our geographic diversification.
Now with the assets integrated, we are talking about 43 plants distributed across seven different countries of our productive origins, which gives us an exceptional ability to mitigate risks and again arbitrage markets, a unique and extremely valuable element in a highly volatile environment, such as the one we are experiencing today. I would like to highlight that despite the consistency in our operational execution and naturally the reported performance, we have observed with some surprise that the market is pricing the company regarding its share value at levels that are very similar to those at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. Again, even considering all the success in operational and financial execution in the last year as described in the earnings report and financial statements. I don't want to be repetitive, but summarizing the last two slides, we published a guidance.
We were in the upper revenue ranges, met market expectations for every item reported. When we look at the performance of our shares, our share prices are exactly the same or very similar, varying maybe 1%, 2%, or 3% compared to the price of shares at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. I just wanted to mention this. I believe that with all the conversations that we had regarding the strategic changes that we made, we should report this to the market and to everyone around us. Finally, I would like to add that Minerva Foods management remains fully committed to executing its strategic plan, always focusing on operational and financial excellence, on reducing the company's risk profile, and on maximizing value generation for all of our stakeholders.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minerva Foods team for all their effort and dedication throughout 2025, with the early completion of the integration and the alignment of the new assets with our management model. We will continue to focus on the continuous improvement of our processes and on identifying opportunities in the global beef protein market, maintaining our confidence in our strategy and business plan. Thank you very much. We will now begin the Q&A session.
Thank you. We'll now begin the Q&A session. To ask questions in Portuguese, please click on the Q&A icon and type in your name and affiliation. When your name is announced, a prompt to activate your microphone will appear on the screen. Please unmute your mic and proceed with your question. Our first question is from Gustavo Troyano from Itaú BBA. Please go ahead, Gustavo.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. In fact, based on your last comment, Edinho, actual versus projections for 2025, I'd like to try and do the same thing in terms of prospects for 2026 along the same lines. What I'd like to hear from you a bit more is about cost inflation, which can happen in Brazil due to a cycle inflection, and your ability to pass on prices in the international market. The first part of the question is what you expect for the cycle and trying to reconcile the retention pace, what you expect in terms of retention pace, and how that affects the price of the arroba, combined with the pace to sell cattle to China, because maybe the quotas might affect the cattle pace in Brazil.
I'd like to hear about the arroba curve from you, thinking about China and cycle and how that's going to affect Brazil. The second part of the question is about the transfer of the cost to your top line. How do you think your ability to pass on prices in the international market is compared to 2025? There are some moving parts like China and the U.S., but I'd like to hear from you how the cost dynamics will talk to the pricing pass-through and your expectation for your 2026 top line. Thank you.
Good morning, Gustavo. Well, it's no news to anyone that we're going through a negative cycle in Brazil. For cattle, and that means increasing the price of the arroba above inflation rates. Yes, we are expecting pressure on cost this year. Now, there is an opportunity to pass on prices in exports, especially by rebalancing supply and demand. Also production should drop in the U.S., China, Australia, and Brazil, which should take away 1 million tons of beef from the international market. There will be room to pass that through. Now, how that will work out in terms of balance, we are being cautious in terms of cattle pressure.
There's going to be freight pressure, also cost increases coming from diesel and energy because of the war. All of that will probably make our margin in 2026 worse than in 2025. There's been a margin reduction year to date in 2026 compared to 2025. In terms of EBITDA, well, first, we decided not to announce a guidance, because based on my last two slides, there's no point in sharing a guidance with you because you don't believe the figures we share with you. We decided not to disclose a guidance for this year.
Now, if you look at the price increase dynamics, volume increase, margin, and the capacity utilization, our top line should increase by 6%-10% for the full year. Even if there is a reduction in margin and EBITDA, we are confident that 2025's EBITDA will be roughly the floor for 2026's EBITDA. Do you want to jump in, Fernando?
Well, Gustavo, you mentioned the Brazil cycle, but let's not forget that Minerva has a unique geographic diversification in South America. An impact that could mean a restriction in terms of safeguards imposed by China actually becomes an advantage to our operations in other countries. Let me just reiterate, because often you ask questions about Brazil, but Brazil only accounts for roughly half of what Minerva does. The other half is spread across South America. Let me give you another example. In the U.S., Brazil did have restrictions in 2025. There may still be restrictions. Conversations are ongoing. Brazil may have other restrictions. On the other hand, other countries such as Argentina have a wide-open door. Considering these assessments, you should always bear in mind that we have margin resilience, geographic diversification, and ability to arbitrage different opportunities.
In terms of pricing pass-through and transferring costs to end prices, protein, especially beef, has never been on such a high in terms of consumption recommendations in the food pyramid. Even with prices going up, there's considerable stability in consumption, especially in developed countries, where the weight of food is quite small in family budgets. In developing countries, things are going the other way. China, with the restrictions, there's a possibility or even prospect to pass on prices. When you conduct your assessments, remember to look at Minerva's arbitrage capacity.
Great points. Thank you.
The next question is from Ricardo Alves from Morgan Stanley.
Good morning, Fernando. Good morning, Edinho. Thanks for this opportunity. My question is about China and the quotas. What is the current shipping dynamics? Do you see any major differences among major players and smaller players? You are speeding up shipments. Do you have any predictability in terms of the quota being exhausted in the third quarter? I would also like to hear a bit about Argentina and Uruguay quota offset. I mean, if the quota ends in Brazil very soon, what would be the difficulty or the level of complexity in being able to redirect new contracts? Logistics is probably slightly different. How does that work in practice?
My second question is about the Brazilian domestic market. There has been a slowdown at the end of the year, and looking at the domestic spread at the beginning of the year, it seems to be slightly worse for the industry quarter-on-quarter. Not too much, but there hasn't been an improvement in the spread. Is that how you're seeing the Brazilian domestic market? Is there still pressure on it or is it beginning to improve? Those are my questions. Thank you.
Well, I'll take your second question, Ricardo. Yes. There is a concern on the part of Brazilian consumers because of cost inflation rates. We do expect to see consumers being more cautious in the domestic market. Going from stable to a slight retraction or even a trade-down from premium products to cheaper products, even within beef products. That's the trend we're seeing. Obviously, depending on what happens this year, there will be volatility in Brazil with the elections. Yes, consumers are more cautious in Brazil. As for China, logistics are practically the same between Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. The same vessels that go to Santos go to Buenos Aires and Montevideo, so logistics are practically the same.
What happens to Brazil, considering the quota system imposed by China, was an average of the last three years of what countries exported before June 2024. They took 2022, 2023, and 2024 and came up with an average of countries exports. The same applied to Australia, Brazil, the U.S., Argentina, and Uruguay. The main difference is that Brazil in 2025 was speeding things up, so that average before 2024, the safeguard, it's not a quota, it's a safeguard. The safeguard that was imposed was lower. There's still one criteria that's not official yet concerning the quotas, so we're still waiting to see what the actual criteria to be applied to Brazil will be in terms of China's quotas. Meanwhile, the shipping is still business as usual.
Great. Thank you.
Good morning, Fernando and Edison. Thank you. I'd like to zoom out of the two last questions to ask you about your trading strategy. For many reasons last year, you had inventory changes, and I would love to pick your brain on whether you expect something more linear for this year with changes in destinations or with accelerations of exports into the U.S. in the second half of the year. How are you preparing for these potential changes that could be dramatic changes in exports? My second question has to do with capital allocation throughout the year. I know that there has been a change in leveraging between 0.3x and 0.4x throughout the year. My question is: What's your priority? Is it reducing leveraging? Is it reducing your balance? Is it working with marginal investments, or are you looking for resilience to protect yourselves? Thank you.
Okay, let me start with the last question. Yes, our focus is on deleveraging within the investments within the regular CapEx. Regarding inventory, it is based on a formula. It all depends on the existing quota system in destination countries compared to a potential carry, and they carry estimates of how much it costs us to carry this inventory. If we have a positive result and we have savings in quotas, then we may hold inventory in some countries. As I said, it all depends on the results of this equation. It is quota and tax savings versus the cost of carrying it. Let me add something. Regarding capital allocation, we have a policy of dividends payout always under 2.5 times we pay at least 50% of the net income.
In 2026, if we have the same performance we had in 2025 for cash flow generation, we're gonna have BRL 1.5 billion. With a similar net income, we're gonna pay BRL 500 million in dividends. We're gonna have BRL 1 billion that we could use to reduce our debt by the end of 2026. This leads to a leveraging that is closer to 2x and not 2.5x. Our total priority is to generate free cash flow to continue our deleveraging. Regarding inventory, what we saw in the fourth quarter is exactly the same thing that happened in the fourth quarter of last year. To face, especially the United States quota in the first quarter, we spent the year with inventory, and then over time, over the quarters, we sell this bigger inventory. We're probably going to make use of a steep curve in prices.
Good. Thank you.
Our next question is from Henrique Brustolin, Bradesco BBI.
Good morning, Fernando and Edison. Thank you for answering my questions. First, let's go back to the conversation about margin. Specifically in this quarter, the margin was below what we had for the historical averages. I'd like to understand what the biggest issue was. Is it the domestic market, as we were saying? I'd like to understand the impact of that in this quarter moving forward. Secondly, we have shipping costs, and we have conflicts and everything that is happening. For exports, how are you tackling vessel shipping costs? I remember that in the past, since you have longer contracts, it took you a while to feel the impact of that. I'd love to understand your take on this and what the impact of that should be throughout the year.
Overall, we can compare the fourth quarter of 2025 and 2024. This justifies the drop of 60 basis points in the EBITDA margin. Regarding shipping costs, there's no impact on the short term because we have long-term contracts, but it all depends on how long this war lasts and how things are going to unfold in the next 90 to 120 days. In the first quarter, there's no significant impact, but we have to wait and see what's gonna happen.
Great. Thank you.
Good morning, Fernando. Good morning, Edison. Good morning, everyone. Actually, if I could go back to the issue of the Chinese quotas, because when we look at the circumstances, it reminds us of what happens in the U.S. last year. Historically, the company has done really well navigating issues to do with arbitrage, and Fernando talked a lot about that during the presentation. What kind of opportunities are you seeing in these quotas and the disorderly fashion that it's been taking place to Minerva? And as a segue to what Edison talked about in terms of margins, saying that 2026's margins will be lower than 2025's. I don't know if there are other components, but the 8.8% EBITDA margin in 2025 was the lowest. I mean, it's not high as it is. If we could tie those two things together in terms of opportunities posed by Chinese quotas to companies such as Minerva and the margin for the year.
The second point, as a follow-up question, Edison, I don't want you to share a guidance, but in terms of expectations to increase the revenue by 6%, if you could just give us a bit more color on what kind of volume growth you're expecting for this year. I'm asking based on last year's volume-based, which were higher because of the inventories in the U.S. and the drop in cattle availability in Brazil.
I'll take the second question percent. I said from 6%-10%. It was a range, not a specific number. It's a 1/3 of that is gonna be volume, and 2/3 is gonna be price, average price over the year. As for the Chinese quotas, there's no question that companies that have the volume and the ability to carry over that inventory, that have the right sales channels, more solid sales channels, once the quota system in China becomes clearer, we'll have the plan. The plan might be to have goods at the destination or at the origin or maybe delaying some volume during the year or bringing it forward.
It will all depend on what happens with the quotas. It's worthwhile mentioning that out of our seven main markets, six of them changed their quota system in the last six months. There's no question that we've never faced a situation where beef has been so international. Each country is still finding its own import system, and obviously, those who have the volume, the knowledge, and the distribution channel, as well as the financial ability to do so, will benefit from that. Relevant players that have the right structure will benefit from it.
The main thing is to have clarity and stability. In terms of the margin dynamics, it's easy. If you have a more appreciated FX at the beginning of the year compared to the last quarter last year, the price of cattle is roughly at the same level, slightly above. Sales prices are higher. Over the year, there should be some cost pressure coming from other lines, mainly due to cost inflation coming from energy and fuel prices.
We need to be a bit more cautious concerning the year and expect a lower EBITDA margin than that of 2025. As I said, we expect our revenue to go up by 6%-10%, so it's very likely that EBITDA in monetary units will be very similar or the floor of 2025. I've got just one more point. As I said to Gustavo at the start, the quota systems and safeguard systems, import duties are no longer one size fits all. They're more much more specific to what each country is doing, what kind of relations that country has with that importing country, which relationship an exporting country has with an importing country.
To Minerva, as was the case in China, like I said, Brazil does have restrictions coming from China, which isn't the case in other countries, and the same applies to the U.S. Now, the Mercosur-EU Agreement is being discussed. That's another opportunity and yet a different quota system that's being put in place. Increasingly, we see that being able to have geographic diversification is a unique hedging that Minerva has and puts us in a very unique position.
That was excellent. Thank you.
The next question is from Leonardo Alencar from XP.
Good morning, Fernando and Edison. If I could ask a couple of follow-up questions. Could you give us an update on the U.S. and their quota dynamics? Last year they had a significant strategy in terms of sales positioning, and how's that going now at the beginning of the year? Are you still building that up, given the opportunities of cattle prices to start selling that inventory looking forward? Another point, if you could provide a bit more clarity, because there's a lot of noise about the Middle East. It was talking about a much bigger relevance than we see in the actual data. We don't really believe that, but what kind of an impact could that have for you on your results?
Will you be seeing anything in results in the first quarter? Should we expect anything in the first quarter? In the cattle dynamics in Brazil, we know that there will be less availability, higher prices. Last year it was practically 1/3 of slaughter coming from the feedlot agreements. Do you think that contracted basis for 2026 will increase? Does it still make sense to expect that? Has there been any progress on that? Those are my three questions. Thank you.
Well, in terms of the U.S. dynamics, obviously, last year, due to the changes, there was a considerable learning curve. This year we're doing the same thing. It's a first-in, first-served quota system, and we're doing our best to extract value from that. We learn on the go. We learn by executing, and we'll do our best this year. Definitely, this year will be better than last year. The Middle East is a relatively relevant destination for us, and there have been some price increases due to a lack of supply.
Logistics, channels, clients, the location of the clients and how not to depend only on sea transportation, but also being able to use road and air transportation to countries that have stricter restrictions, especially in the Gulf area. Well, cattle purchase strategy in Brazil is always to do with arbitrating between origins and the price curve. There's no difference to our usual acquisition strategy.
That's clear. Thank you.
We've reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now hand it over to Mr. Fernando for his final remarks.
I would also like to address the questions that we had in writing, but they were covered during our explanation. Right now, the world is increasingly more volatile. In this sense, speed is one of the main things we're focusing on. In addition to speed, we need to have geographic diversification. This allows for different things to have different impact on different locations. Minerva has always focused on risk mitigation and risk management, so these tools are increasingly more important. The second closing remark I'd like to share is that we were quick and effective in the integration of the new assets. We were able to change this company. In the last years, we had 20 acquisitions, and we always had a more efficient benchmark.
We always had more efficient processes, always in search of productivity. Finally, my third and most important point is a huge thank you to the whole Minerva team. Our team has shown to be resilient and able to execute. We've seen how much our people makes a difference. This is a really special group. It is a group that is focused, a group of experts on what they do, and a group that has a very robust global vision. We're always available to you. Should you have any questions about this company, please reach out. Talk to us or to the IR team. Thank you.
This is the end of Minerva's Earnings Release Presentation. Should you have any questions, please send us your questions to the Investor Relations team, ri@minervafoods.com. Thank you so much, and have a good day.