Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the conference call for the results of Camil's first quarter 2021 for investors and analysts. With us here today are Mr. Luciano Quartiero, Director President, Flavio Vargas, CFO, and the IR team of the company. In case any of you need any assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator.
This audio is being presented simultaneously in the investor relations website of the company. Comments from the management about the quarter and the Q&A session may contain forward-looking statements related to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and therefore may lead to expectations that may or may not occur or that differ substantially from what was expected. We will now initiate the Q&A session for investors and analysts. In case you have questions, please press star one.
Our first question comes from Guilherme Palhares from Bank of America.
Good morning, Luciano. Good morning, Flavio. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is about your working capital position. We saw that there is a period where there is a greater demand for working capital. Despite all that, you were able to generate working capital in the quarter. Can you tell me about your strategy about the company's inventories and how do you see the movement of rice prices in particular? My second question is about this volume, especially regarding the beans market, because we saw the company in the past three years with a certain behavior. I would like to know whether this is a level that we should expect going forward and whether that is sustainable.
Could you please clarify your first question because it wasn't very clear to me.
Good morning. Certainly. It is about your inventory policies. Even though we see raw material prices increasing quite a lot year-over-year, your working capital requirement was very low when compared to the first quarter of 2020. I want to know just what changed in terms of the company's strategy regarding inventories.
Okay. I think the first topic about our inventory policy is very much aligned with our supply strategy. As most companies in the market expected, and I am referring to grains and rice, that there will be a drop in prices. At first, that drop in prices was slower, and at the end of the first quarter, it was a bit higher. The company decided to operate with very low inventory levels, unlike what we usually do. This policy proved to be assertive. We saw our first quarter scenario being very challenging.
Just to conclude with the inventories in the other categories, things were in line. Rice was a bit different from usual. As I was saying, this was a very challenging quarter for grains, and every time we see a drop in prices, the retailers postpone their purchases, and they weren't replenishing inventory until they see that there is no more room for further price increases. In fact, retailers reduced their purchases. I would like just to say that I'm very pleased with our performance because in such a challenging quarter with grains, where at the beginning of the quarter, rice was BRL 85 per bag, and at the end of the quarter was around BRL 73, BRL 74.
With that dynamics of lower purchases, despite all that, we were able to grow 3% when compared to the base, which was on the onset of the pandemic, which was quite a strong quarter. I think our result was very good. Going back to our working capital policy, I think this was a major effect. That was not all, because that also was impacted by better management that resulted in a more positive outcome. In terms of the beans volume, to answer your second question, for a few quarters, the company has already been doing something different with beans. Within our geographic coverage, the market where we already operate with rice usually have lower sales of beans when we look at the consumption of each region. The company is focusing on that area.
This new level of beans is something that has been consolidated in the past quarters. This is what we see going forward in terms of a new level for beans. Speaking about the other categories, the volume performance in Brazil in this first quarter was exceptional in our opinion.
Perfect. Just as an additional follow-up to that answer. Apparently, if we look at sugar, we see that the company decided to go in a different direction when compared to the direction of the general market. Can you please elaborate about this strategy and how is that evolving? I think that this had a slight impact on margin, but by the same token, this allowed you to increase volumes. Could you let me know what was the rationale behind that strategy of sugar prices?
Well, regarding sugar, I think my first statement may sound counterintuitive. I think my first statement is to say that we did not let go of margins in detriment of volumes. You see that we posted 8% growth year-over-year. Also, considering that everything was based on the first quarter of last year on the onset of the pandemic. Let me elaborate a bit more. The first thing I would like to say is that the company did not let go of the margins in detriment of more volumes. All of that was due to our different sales strategy that we've been pursuing. This is somehow also reflected in all of the three categories in Brazil of grains, fish, and sugar. Sugar is the only segment that it's not performing according to expected in terms of margins.
We are performing well in grains, fish. We are also posting good performances abroad. In sugar, maybe due to some macro effects and the way that we position our supply, the impact at the end was not so positive. We do not break down the results per segment, but I'm saying that this was the segment that puts our EBITDA margins down in Brazil. This is something that has been solved from July onwards. At the end of June and early July, the way we are now operating just shows that the results of the sugar business has already resumed to its historical levels, and I think this has helped our overall result. I think with that, I finish answering your question on sugar.
Our next question from Gustavo Troyano from Itaú BBA.
Good morning, Luciano. Good morning, Flavio. I have two questions about rice Brazil. The first is about your inventory at the retail level. In the fourth quarter, we started seeing inventories resuming to normal levels, and I think now the inventory levels are more normal. I just want to understand whether this process started and ended in your first quarter, or it was carried over to the beginning of the first quarter. The second question refers to your rice sales mix. Sales from Camil and from lower pricing brands. I just would like you to comment about the dynamics of these two categories, which one grew the most, and how are you seeing this dynamic in these first two months of the next quarter?
Well, in terms of the retail inventory, as I was saying, as we expected prices to go down, we started and concluded the reduction of inventories that was built throughout the end of last year due to a significant price increase, and then it remained low because people expected rice prices to go down. Because of that, retailers were operating at low inventories according to our assessment, and that remained throughout that quarter. Now we see some changes, especially now at the end of June and early July. In our view now, rice prices is now at normal levels. It started at BRL 85, and last week and this week, the market is operating at around BRL 70, BRL 72, and now we expect to see some increases in the short run again.
The rice price expectation and the average that I said that we had last year, and the expectation of the company for this year is that it will remain around BRL 70. Now going back to the retail subject, we work with low inventory levels, and our current feeling is that retailers will start to resume their inventories back to normal levels. That concludes the answer about retail. Now, sales mix in the three categories have been quite challenging. I mean, just to summarize, I would say that we are very much focused in considering the macro scenario and depending on the space of the main brands, we see some growing trend of lower pricing brands. This is a macro scenario.
In the first quarter, we were able to increase the Camil brands, and now we have a different strategy for sales, and we are already reaping the benefits of our strategy. Now to answer your specific question, whether the growth came from lower pricing brands or Camil, well, proportionally it was higher with lower pricing brands, and I think that this is what we anticipate for the rest of the year. Once again, I reinstate that I'm very pleased with the results we posted in this first quarter.
That was very clear. Thank you very much, Luciano.
Our next question comes from Lucas Ferreira from JPMorgan.
Good morning. I have two questions about your outlook for the remaining of the year. First of all, Brazil, with the reopening of stores and the economy and if for some reason you already see some impact of the opening of the economy of the country and whether you see some other further moves, especially in Uruguay and Peru? How do you see the performance of these two countries?
Thank you very much. Our expectation for the remaining of the year is that we will continue pursuing the same pace of the first quarter. When the economy reopens again, this is something that is being discussed in the past two, three quarters, and we continue to believe that I don't think with the reopening we will increase or decrease our volumes. We had an initial peak of demand at the beginning of the pandemic when people started to stock out and then consumption just remains the same.
I don't see any further positive or negative impact when the economy goes back to normal, both in Brazil and also abroad. Speaking about Uruguay, when we didn't have such a good volume performance. In fact, it was not a bad performance, it was already expected, but our sales last year were very good. Our transfer inventory we just had the lowest inventory ever in the entire history of the company. The new crop season was received at the end of February and March, and until we processed everything and had products to sell, there was a mismatch. We already expected a lower third quarter due to lower inventories. In the second quarter we already see a rebound in sales. When we look at year-on-year comparison, we expect a slight reduction in volume because of the lower crop season.
This is far from being that 30% that we had in the first quarter. In the next three quarters in Uruguay, we will see a rebound in volume. At the end of the year, volumes will be slightly lower considering the rest we have to sell until the end of the year. As for Peru was heavily impacted in this first quarter. We feel that the political stability generated a lot of impact in both formal and informal economies in the country, and this is something that was heavily observed throughout the year. Now, when you look at the month of June, we see that the volumes are back to normal. Therefore, we believe that Peru will resume to its historical levels without that heavy impact in that first quarter. Chile is, according to our expectations, year-over-year, but profitability is quite good.
This is our view about the international segment. I don't want to be repetitive, so we do not expect any major changes once the pandemic is over.
Thank you.
I would like to remind you that, for questions, please press star one. Now I'll turn the floor back to the management. We received a question from Alexandre. Thank you, Alexandre, and it's about Chile.
Alexandre, thank you. This is Flavio. As we already reported in other occasions, between the approval we had of the transaction from the authorities in Chile, the company in Chile had a quality issue that led them to recall all their products. They had to stop their plants and reorganize their production schedule. They also had to revisit their entire quality procedure. At first, this had a very significant impact on that deal and that led us to postpone the closing of the deal.
Since then, we've been closely monitoring how things are developing and our local team in Chile from Iansa, they are still making all the necessary adjustments to the business. The plant is back on track. They resumed operations. They already made agreements with the consumer organizations in Chile. They resumed sales, and they are recovering. Therefore, we believe that maybe in the next five, six, or seven months, we will be able to learn more about the evolution of the business so that we can sit down with the seller and try to set up other terms and conditions that would be suitable for the closing of the deal.
To make a long story short, we are monitoring the situation very closely, and we are just waiting for the outcome so that we decide what we will do at the end, whether we will proceed with the deal or not, and how things will evolve.
I would like just to add another comment because there is a recurring question during our calls, and that is about the company's further opportunities and whether we are envisioning some further acquisition. Of course, we cannot give you any elaborate details, but I would say that the company is more optimistic. We are noticing an increased number of opportunities, a significant increase, and this reflects the fact that many companies struggled in the past year and a half, and therefore, we are very optimistic in terms of the second half of the year.
I would like to remind you that for questions, please press star one. I'll now turn the floor back to the management for their final comments. We just received another question from Jose through the webcast about pricing outlook for the main products of the company and what is the company's view for the next coming months.
Well, I would say in general, I already talked about rice. The company believes that the average annual price will be around BRL 80. That means that in view of the scenario at the end of the first quarter and the average price in June, we still expect a slight improvement. There are still some challenges in terms of the rice inventories from one crop season to another, and this may put some pressure throughout the second half of the year.
We still maintain our expectation of around BRL 30, which is very similar to that of last year, but with lower volatility. If you recall, last year we had BRL 35. This year, it came to BRL 105 at one point, and then the price came back, and I think that we believe that prices will go back to being between BRL 80 and BRL 85. We also expect prices to be maintained. Prices from the first half will be maintained throughout the second half. In terms of sugar, we expect that current levels will be maintained. They are significantly higher than prices of two years ago, 35%-40% higher when compared to the previous half year. This is the new pricing level, and we believe that this will be maintained going forward.
In terms of fish, there was an increase in the first quarter, this reflected an increase of costs, both in terms of raw material and packaging. We are receiving further demands for increases from our packaging suppliers. Due to difficulties in obtaining raw materials, we should expect further increases; therefore, fish prices are expected to be higher. We think that all in all, it will be higher when compared to last year, that means that the company is now at a different level.
As there are no further questions, I turn the floor back to the company for their final remarks.
First of all, I would like to thank you very much for joining us today. I must say that for the company, this first quarter of 2021 posted very good results, we are very pleased with the outcome.
In Brazil, we had consistent growth in all the categories where we operate. There was a very good sequential growth vis-à-vis the last half year of last year. The year started harder than we imagined. Rice had lower prices when compared to prices at the end of last year. It's a decreasing curve that makes it difficult, not only in terms of volume, but also profitability. In the sugar segment, our volume performance was good, but our profitability was pressured. And there was also growth in the fish segment, and our profitability level was quite positive.
In the international segment. Our performance was very much in line with what we had anticipated before. Even though volumes at first may seem like a detracting factor, it's not different than what the company expected. Uruguay had a very sound performance in a given year, but the year and the inventory was low.
This is an indication that in the first quarter, things would be lower. In Chile, if you look at the adjusted base, the performance was very consistent to its historical numbers. Peru, in fact, there we had an operating challenge due to the pandemic and the impact of the pandemic in the economy of that country, and due to the dynamics of the local market, we had to work much harder to make a turnaround and to put the business back into its historical levels. At the end of this first quarter, our operating performance was good. If you look at the adjusted figures due to non-recurring factors, it's very much in keeping with the numbers posted last year. In terms of cash, our cash generation was positive.
Also, due to the successful strategy of our procurement team, and we saw the effects of that both in the results of the company, because the company was very resilient, and also if we look at the cash effect. Now, going forward, looking at the end of the year, we are always a bit skeptical because we are working diligently to adjust all of our structures, being cost structure, procurement structure, logistics, and distribution. We are working hard in terms of our go-to-market strategy. We are reinforcing the partnerships of the company, and we have leading brands. We have to harness on our brands. We believe that in the next quarters, we will be able to reap the benefits of our strategy. Thank you so very much, and I wish you all a very good day.
Camil's conference call is now concluded. Thank you very much for participating, and have a very good day.