Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Earnings Video Conference of Kepler Weber to discuss the results of the first quarter of 2023. Here with us today are Piero Abbondi, Chief Executive Officer, Paulo Polezi, CFO and Investor Relations Officer, and Bernardo Nogueira, Commercial Director, who will participate exclusively in the Q&A session. We would like to inform you that the presentation is being recorded and translated simultaneously. The translation is available by clicking on the Interpretation button. For those listening to the video conference in English, there is an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on Mute Original Audio. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphone disabled. We will start the Q&A session. To ask a question, click the Q&A icon and enter your name and company.
When being announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen, and then you must unmute your microphone to ask questions. We would like to clarify that any forward-looking statements that may be made during this video conference regarding the business perspectives of Kepler Weber, its operating and financial targets, constitute projections of the company's management, and these may or may not occur. Investors should understand that political factors, microeconomic factors, as well as other operating factors could affect the future performance of the company and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. To open the re-results video conference of the first quarter of 2023, I pass the floor to Mr. Piero Abbondi.
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you once again for the video conference to discuss the results of Kepler. I start with the first highlight for the quarter, which was the net revenue of BRL 323 million, a 26% decrease when compared to the first quarter of 2022. In spite of this, revenue for the period is second only to the first quarter of 2022, since it was higher than all the other first quarters in the company's history. We observe a more adverse scenario that reduced the pace of activity in the rural producer segment, partially offset by projects involving corporate clients. Paulo will provide detail on the performance of each segment later on. With regard to performance, EBITDA was BRL 77 million, a margin of 24%. Net revenue reached BRL 51 million, a margin of 26%.
I would like to highlight the resilience of EBITDA and net income, which remained at healthy levels, even in view of the drop in the level of activity in the period. On the strategic side, in March, we concluded the acquisition of 50% plus one of Procer. The acquisition was a milestone in Kepler's journey and is part of the strategy to accelerate the digital journey, which since 2019, with the launch of the Sync platform, has been seeking to further improve the customer experience with our brand. Finally, we advanced in another quarter with an exuberant ROIC reaching 80%, and we maintained a consistent level in this relevant indicator. I now turn the floor over to Paulo to explain the performance of the segment and the financial results for the quarter.
Thank you, Piero. Good morning, everyone. Before presenting the evolution of the business segment on slide four, I highlight their new repositioning. A movement that aims to strengthen and focus on the performance on the various players in the post-harvest chain. In the new format, we classify the post-harvest customers into two groups: farms, which correspond to the rural producers of all sizes, and agribusiness, which refer to corporate clients such as trading companies, industries, cooperatives, and cereal growers. On slide five, starting with segment farms, which reached BRL 107.4 million, a reduction of 12.4% compared to the same period of 2022. We had a reduction in the average ticket due to the downturn in the price of steel, the scarcity of resources in the agribusiness lines such as PCA, and the reduction in the value of commodities impacting agricultural income in the period.
In business, we reached BRL 110.1 million, 53% decrease compared to the first quarter of 2022, mainly as a result of the high interest rate scenario, generating lower business volume in the period when compared to the previous quarter, when we had deliveries of large projects that boosted our figures. International business reached BRL 22.8 million, a decrease of 39.7% compared to the first quarter of last year, mainly driven by the long-lasting drought in Paraguay and the economic slowdown in South American countries since 80% of our exports are directed to that region. As to ports and terminals, net revenue reached BRL 31.8 million, an increase of 100% when compared to the first quarter of 2022, which was close to zero due to a one-off postponement by a client due to its internal operational issues.
This increase is a result of the delivery of important projects, including a large port terminal in Paranaguá. Finally, in replacement and services, we had an increase of 19.4% compared to the same period of 2022 as a result of the consolidation of the distribution centers, sales of CapEx orders, sales of specialized services, including training, and the modernization of obsolete plants. On slide six, we share some projects completed in the first quarter of 2023. In the project of Santa Rosa in Rio Grande do Sul, the compact layout allowed for a quick execution and easy operation of the equipment, allowing assembly to be completed in record time, meeting the customer's need to store the crop.
The project Monte do Carmo in Tocantins, service a region where production is experiencing strong growth, allowing for an increase in the customer's bargaining power in addition to saving on freights, in addition to another major problem in the region. The project Boa Esperança in Paraná, delivered in March 2023, is an expansion that allowed the producer to gain scale since there is a more robust flow now with the new equipment. On slide seven, we have Uíge project in Angola with the constant presence of Kepler brand since 2004. We provide a complete project, providing support during the assembly phase until its commissioning and the ramp up. We describe the El Socorro project in Venezuela. This is the first installation of silos for the client who operates as a buyer of local corn.
Kepler is a reference brand in Venezuela with a constant presence and a strong after-sales services which generates confidence to local customers. On slide eight, as a way of demonstrating the renewal of orders in the portfolio, we recorded the entry of 14 different suppliers engaged in the quarter, which together add up to approximately BRL 178 million in new sales. In the table, we highlighted the entry of new projects in the ports and terminals segment amounting to BRL 71 million in works. In an important port terminal in the northeastern portion of the country, the revenues will begin to come in in the second quarter of this year and will continue throughout 2024. On slide nine, we show the evolution of EBITDA in the first quarter of 2023, where we generated BRL 77.4 million, a reduction of 47.3% when compared to the first quarter of 2022.
EBITDA generation reflects a lower operating leverage due to a naturally weaker seasonality in the beginning of the year as producers' investments tend to accelerate in the second half of the year with the harvest of crops and the grants of government financing lines. Despite the scenario, the margin of 24% remained at a level well above the average of recent years, in line with good operational management practices and expenses under control. On slide 10, we show the evolution of CapEx investments. In the first quarter of 2023, we had an acceleration of investments that totaled BRL 29.4 million. I would like to point out that BRL 27 million were allocated to expanding production capacity, with BRL 12.4 million allocated to the new powder coating line and BRL 10.2 million to the acquisition of new production machines.
We also had BRL 400 million in the new product development, BRL 1 million in IT, and BRL 1 million in safety and renovations. Cash generation remains consistent even taking into account the less favorable seasonality at the beginning of the year, ending with the quarter with a balance of BRL 318.6 million, contributing to maintaining the company's financial robustness. If loans are not considered, the net cash balance was BRL 147.3 million, which remained at a robust level even after the investment of BRL 50.8 million for the acquisition of 50% plus one share of Procer in the month of March. On slide 12, I highlight the improvement in the liquidity of our share. KEPL3, whose average monthly financial volume grew 16%, started to trade BRL 16.2 million a day.
As mentioned by Piero on slide 13, we show the ROIC for the first quarter of 2023, which reached the mark of 80.3%, 19.7 percentage points in relation to the first quarter of 2022, mainly due to the acceleration of investments in the period. I always remember that the high ROIC is one of the strengths of our business model that allows us to add manufacturing capacity without the need for larger investments. On slide 14, we show the payment of BRL 77.7 million in dividends. Paid on April the 5th 2023, expanding the payout to 151% on a cash basis. With this, I finish my part and turn the floor back to Piero.
Thank you very much, Paulo. Before moving on to the question and answer session, I would like to point out some of the recent achievements and comment on our prospect for the remainder of 2023. Firstly, I must stress the evolution of Kepler's resilience in the face of more adverse scenarios, such as the one we are experiencing, specifically in the segment of rural producers. Even so, both sales and profitability remained at levels above the historical average. We also celebrated the completion of the acquisition of 50% plus one share of Procer, which, in addition to increasing recurring revenues in the segment of Replacement Services, will allow us to open several avenues of growth linked to the increase in the connected customer base, which already accounts for 13% of static storage in Brazil.
Finally, I highlight the repositioning of the company's business segment, a movement that aims to strengthen and focus on the various players in the post-harvest chain. Highlighting the brainstorm performance from origination to domestic consumption and exports of agricultural products. As prospects for the year 2023, I mentioned that Brazil projects a new grain production record in the 2022-2023 crop with 313 million tons. This level will demand new project in all segments, and we are prepared to capture all the opportunities that will arise. Demand continues to be positive, especially for corporate customers from agribusiness, cooperatives, and porting terminals. They will provide good opportunities to mitigate the slower pace of rural producers and the consequent maintenance of the Kepler's activity level in 2023.
In our favor, there's also less pressure from material costs together with actions to reduce expenses and costs, contributing to the delivery of good profitability in the year. With this, I conclude the presentation of the results for the first quarter of 2023. Please, operator, we can now proceed to the question and answer session.
Thank you. We are now going to start the Q&A session. To ask a question, click the Q&A icon and enter your name and company. When being announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen, and then you must unmute your microphone to ask your question. The first question comes from Fernanda Urbano with XP.
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. Good morning. Good morning, Piero, Polezi, Bernardo.
Good morning.
Congratulations on the results, thank you very much for taking our questions. We have two questions on our side. The first is related to the demand for products of post-harvest, especially for farm and agribusiness. We saw that the revenues were a bit depressed in the first quarter in comparison to last year. I would like to understand how you see the demand for the quarters to come for the year, especially the seasonality, which is more concentrated in the second half, as you have just mentioned. The second part would be about for Procer. You mentioned in the re-release that contributed with BRL 4 million in replacement and services. Since its consolidation, could you provide more information how the integration process is going and how much value can you still capture for the year? Thank you.
Thank you, Fernanda, for the question you asked. I'm going to start answering the question about the market for 2023 and then Bernardo will complete and provide more details. In relation to Procer, Paulo will be the one to answer about it. First, to talk about demand. In 2023, we see that this will be a year where we go back to normalcy. 2022 was an exceptional year. We worked at 100% of capacity for different reasons, but it was a very heated year and the demand was very stable along the year, especially considering the delivery date both for the us and for the industry. This year we go back to normal in the sector with a weaker demand for the first half of the year.
After the crop is completed, the rural producers will resume the purchases and they will plan the new crop that will be 2023, 2024. This is what we see, stronger demand of agribusiness that we call CNPJ, which are companies whose planning is more regular along the year, agribusiness, ports and terminals as well. As for rural growers, we see that demand is going to be a little bit pushed to the future. We have seen lots of interest, lots of quotations, and we are going to use the next months to prepare for the other quarters. This is exactly what used to happen in the past. This is just a natural movement that we see in our market. I would like Bernardo to provide more detail. Maybe he could give some examples. It would be very nice to have some examples, Bernardo.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, great. Fernanda, t hank you very much for the question. Piero said that it is going to be a year where we go back to normal. 2022 was an exceptional year, we believe that 2023 is also going to be a very strong year, even though we're going to go back to normal. We see a very heated demand, and there is a level of ambiguity. High interest rates and soybean prices have had an important drop in the last six months. On the other hand, we added more than 40 million tons this year. We reached 330 million, so equivalent to the whole soybean production of Argentina.
While the producer is facing high interest rates and has difficulty to make investments, on the other hand, we see that the agri businesses, the major cereal producers are operating at a record. We have seen two major crops. The first crop is higher than our static capacity. We see that we see a very strong roadmap, and we see investments coming in. This is a big challenge we are facing. It's important to mention that for the next crop, consultants say that we are likely to grow even more, so we are going to go to 330 million tons. We are likely to reach to 400 million tons in 2024. This is a way with no return. We're going to have a continuous demand for solutions for storage. Okay, Fernanda?
Hi, Fernanda. Good morning. Thank you very much for the question. We are going to talk a little bit about Procer. The first point is that we had in the balance sheet, in the materials, we saw the consolidation of the revenue of Procer as of March. As we said, 50% plus one share that allows us for the complete consolidation of the results. In March, Procer had a net revenue close to BRL 5 million, and this was according to what we expected. We'd like to remind you that all those who are following this acquisition process, just for us to have an idea, in 2022, Procer had sales of BRL 60 million and at the margin of 26%.
It's a company that works in the field, installing equipment, connecting clients and customers, and allowing services to be provided. We provide the telemetric services. It's an equipment company and also technology, all operating together. The integration has already started. This is part of the question. It started in March, and it's going to have different phases. The planning was with a lot of detail. Procer is in Criciúma. The main plant is located in Panambi in Rio Grande do Sul. The main areas which are the operating and the commercial areas are already operating in an integrated manner. The main thesis is the following. The main factor that led us to acquire Procer was the possibility of connecting the plant in Brazil.
According to Conab's data, there are approximately 17,000 plants, and Procer has about 12% of the static capacity. With this, when we put all those forces together, we are going to go after this market. We are not going to reach the 17,000 plants then because not all of them are ready to be connected. We are on this journey. The prospects for the year are the following. We expect to grow very strongly. Procer has grown a lot. Also in 2022, as Bernardo mentioned, this is a year when we'll go back to normal. Procer is likely to have a level of activity which similar to ours, with the first half with revenues at a slower pace and a stronger second half. We have important plans for Procer this year. We're going to accelerate as businesses get integrated. If there's anything missing, Fernanda, please let us know. Thank you.
No, it was very clear. Thank you very much.
Good.
Other question comes from Renata Cabral with Citi.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for answering my question. I have two questions on my side. The first one is in relation to e volution of the commercial part to the pipeline in relation to the 1st quarter of 2022 and 2023. The evolution, how you would compare those periods, number of clients and segments. We imagine that there were some sort of exchanges considering the credit conditions. This information would help us a lot. The second question is about the credit conditions. There's a delay, the PCA water mech, but the BNDES, Development Bank, announced another line. I think the announcement happened last week or two weeks ago, I'm not sure. I have a question in relation to the FIAGRO of you. Was it possible for you to finance any project? Thank you.
Renata, thank you very much for the question. Our pipeline is very robust. We have been monitoring. We have a tool in the CRM that we use, and we have all the tools in the Pipedrive, and we use this tool in order to monitor this. We observed a growth of 10% of new entries of interest, and also in the accumulated period. As the opportunities come in, we negotiate and we win some businesses, we lose some businesses, but we saw that the entry of orders was higher than the first quarter of last year. The orders are not being completed. They are not being closed. We are not winning, we're not losing. Maybe there's some uncertainties in the political arena, or maybe the interest rates are playing its role.
On the one hand, the pipeline is growing because we know that when conditions improve, we have the full house in order to bring in business into the plant or into the house, into the business. This is the snapshot. In relation to the mix, we can see clearly, as we mentioned before, with this record crop of 313 million tons. If the producer is facing a moment where he's going to hold back investments, the remainder of the chain will have to invest. We think of the cereal grower and the cooperatives, there are a lot of demands. The same happens to the ports and terminals. It's estimated that soybean exports will grow by 22%, so we need capacity. Our clients need capacity to do this.
The mix is migrating to other corporate corporations, such as ports and terminals. In the first half of this year, we saw growth in ports and in the report, we closed another business of more than BRL 70 million in a port in the state of Bahia. This is a movement that we see for this year, a very strong growth in corporate clients. There's something I would like to add, which is very interesting, which is related to our as Replacement and Services, which is very similar to, which is closer to the OPEX than to the CapEx of our clients. We have seven distribution centers from Rio Grande do Sul to Pará, and we are invoicing them directly to our clients.
The board has approved the completion of other 2 DCs, and this will bring us premium relationship with our clients, and we'll be closer to them. We are going to be attentive to costs. We're going to do a very good management. We are no longer using superlatives as we did last year, still, we're going to have a 2023, very robust in terms of results as well Renata.
Good morning, Renata. This is Paulo speaking. Could you ask again your second question to make sure we understood it well?
Yes. I would like you to make some comments about how you see the credit conditions for the sector, especially for storage, which is your business, right? Considering that the PCA is being held back by the government, but there was a credit that was granted by the Development Bank, BNDES, and this happened recently. I would also like to know about the FIAGRO that was announced in December. Is it operational or can we expect it for the second half of the year?
Thank you very much for the question. The question was very clear. Yes, we are waiting for the next SAFRA plan, and this usually happens in the beginning of June. We are about 60 days away from this date. The announcement of SAFRA plan was very important for us. However, as we have mentioned before in other calls, these funds have not reached the end player. This explain partially what Bernard has just explained.
We have a robust pipeline of orders. Their materialization is much slower because the credit has not reached us. This is something that is still at play. We do not have a lot of funds or resources available in the market. The amounts available are very limited. It seems that everything will happen only after the announcement happens in July. Those who dialogue with the government as representative of sectors, especially Abimaq, we understand there is agenda that is being built. All the deficit of storage capacity has been discussed and all the problems that we have been facing, waste and losses. There is a request at Abimaq, and there is an amount that has been requested, which is BRL 17 billion for the storage, and that would encompass Kepler's business.
The sector understands that this is necessary in order to decrease the problems that we are facing now. Everybody's expecting this announcement as we have since the plan started. You also asked about the new BNDES line. Yes, we celebrated that announcement. It comes at a moment when it reaches this period when we do not have a lot of resources or funds available. It's a very important amount that was announced. The development bank, BNDES, said that in May they will provide more detail about the conditions for the loan. As of May, the credit will start to be granted. There's a difference. The term, the interest rate is very good, 7.59% a year. That's a very accessible interest rate. There's a line which is in dollar.
It's a line that BNDES will demand the client to be an exporter. We see this in a good way because an important part of the client base is comprised of exporters. Another part also have to face those currency variations. This is a complementary fund. It's not SAFRA line, but rather BNDES. Our FIDC is operational, is available in the market. It tries to reflect the conditions of SAFRA plan, 10 years of period. This year we celebrated the first ticket, about BRL 7 million, the first forest that was funded by the grant with good interest rate conditions. Next week we are going to have a trade fair in the city of Ribeirão Preto, and good conditions will be offered to those clients that adhere to our FIAGRO. As interest rates drop, our FIAGRO will become even more attractive to our clients. Okay?
Yeah, it was very clear. Thank you very much. Have a good day, everyone.
Our next question comes from Charles Monteiro with Elevate Capital.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. Can you hear me? Hello?
Yeah, Charles, you may proceed. We can hear you well.
Before anything, I would like to congratulate you on the excellent results of the company. In fact, I have two questions. The first, going into detail in the quarterly results. We saw an increase when we see the invested capital in goodwill and intangibles. We see that part of the contribution should be related to the acquisition of Procer as well. Along those lines, something that drew my attention was the announcement of the ROIC. How do you imagine the impact of acquisition of Procer when we look at the return that it may generate, and also the impact on the ROIC indicator?
Hi, Charles. Thanks for the question. You asked two questions. I'm going to answer them, and Bernardo can add if he feels like it. Beginning with ROIC. Kepler delivered a record more than 80% in return on capital employed. We perform on a very high ROIC. This is allowed by our business model. Why is it so significant? We are a company which works with good profitability, with growth, good growth opportunities, and low need for capital to increase this capacity to capture this growth. As I always say to the analysts and the investors, those who had the opportunity to visit our operations, we have a visit plan.
It's worth it to understand and see how our operations happen. We add capacity to our machines in a modular way. This allows us to grow with a very ROIC. Procer, of course, is a company that does not require a lot of capital. Procer is a more technological company, so, it uses resources in the research and development area, and it helps us in the pipeline, and it brings us added profitability, and we have lots of synergies to be captured. We are going to work so that this Procer's margin can be expanded, and this will only improve our ROIC to be better. In relation to the second part of your question, goodwill, intangibles, and based on the quarter report, yeah, this was as a result of Procer.
After M&A, we acquired 50% and the other 50%, we have an option to acquire up to the end. It would be like an obligation. When you do this process, you also consider... I mean, the consultants that did the study, they consider the full amount of Procer. We made an acquisition of 50%, but for book-related topics, it already considers the other 50%. This is a value that's going to be built in the next five years, and this is already mentioned in the results, and this is why you see this in intangibles and goodwill. This is the reason why you see it in that line.
Okay, perfect, Paulo. Thank you very much for the question. It was very clear.
Our next question comes from Ricardo Sabino with Quatro Um. Please go on.
Hello, everyone. Moving on to the next question. I would like to do a follow-up on the previous question that was answered by Bernardo. Could you segregate in each business line what would be major producers and how many are farms? That would help me understand the dynamics that was used for this year. Another point, I would like to understand topics related to the revenues, since last year was an outlier according to the figures that were announced. Can we expand this drop in sales across the year, or do you think we can recover this by the end of the year? These are my questions.
Thank you for the question. We're now going to start answering the question about the dynamics for the year. As I mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, in 2023, we're resuming a normal seasonality of four segments. In the first quarter, usually the start is lower, and it accelerates as of the second quarter in terms of sales and invoicing for the year. This is part of the dynamic of the rural producer. They close the accounts at the end of the second crop, and then there's the planning for the year and the producer's year starting July in the agricultural year. This is why we aligned with that.
Now answering your question. Without any doubt, this year we are going to go back to normal conditions, and our expectation is to. Everything shows that at least. We see that our pipeline is full, better than last year's. The expectation is to have a second half of the year, which is very positive. We compare to last year, last year was an exceptional year because we have very extended delivery date. At the end of the previous year, we had consecutive increases of steel prices, our clients were interested in closing the business before prices went even higher. We closed that more stable in terms of production. I would also like to mention the importance of implementing lean manufacturing for us. That made us prepared for us to have a response which is much more adequate and quicker to any production variation.
The plants have the capacity to make quick adaptations and prepare for a stronger second half and meet the demand at a proper level. I turn the call to Bernardo for him to answer the question related to the segment or post-harvest, domestic market. We broke down rural producers, farm, farms and agribusiness, which include all the companies.
Ricardo, thank you very much for the question. This segmentation, 70% was post-harvest, and they have two main objectives. First is to align the company for each client group. From commercial up to the plant, we are going to have a very well-aligned activity, including all the players. When we think about the producer, they start buying at 300 hectares, and you go all as to the other side as major players such as Bunge. We have very distinct group engineering projects, and we are very close to all those players.
The second major objective is to have transparency with our investors and analysts so that everybody can understand the moment of the market, so that we can have a very clear communication. It's very interesting to see our mix for the year. We mentioned ambiguity during the presentation. On the one hand, high interest rates, soybeans, prices, very high, and all this would affect the sentiment of the producers. On the other hand, we have Argentina that has been added to Brazil. We added our production to the size of Argentina. We have a demand and need for transport of grains, and the whole chain will need to make investments in order to meet this new demand, this growing demand.
As we can see in the portfolio, we can see that there has been a downturn of business that were closed with the producers. There is also the number of new companies operating. This is something that has been built by Kepler in the last five years, which is related to resilience. If we had all the eggs in the same basket, our results would be much more in danger. We have this resilience as a result of everything we've done, and we are present across the whole chain.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Our next question was received from Marcelo Coelho.
With acquisition of Procer, what's the strategy for the company in terms of second pole systems?
Hi, Marcelo. Thank you very much for the question about Procer. We are very enthusiastic about the opportunity that we have ahead of us. We're entering a new era of connected silos. If we think 20 or 30 years back, Kepler would sell a unit and would meet the requirements at the dealer. Now what we have after this journey is that we have more than 1,000 units already connected. Those clients are going to be connected to Kepler forever, and that will generate dozens of opportunities. I'm going to summarize in three major opportunities. First, added value. You have IoT technologies included. Together with IoT, you have leaders combined together. We need to cover for 80% of the market. We have more than 80% of visibility in the market as a whole, putting the two companies together. This, we have this opportunity to add value.
The second major item which Procer brings into play is the management of conservation of the grains. An average producer has BRL 30 million stored on the farm, so he has to be sure that all the grains are going to be well taken care of. With the Procer, we'll ensure a recurring revenue for the grain conservation. There's another aspect which is very important for Kepler and also to our clients as well, which is the management of the unit. With the IoT, this intelligence, the telemetry, thermometry inside the silo, our clients will be able to have visibility of all the management of the unit. Efficiency, preventive maintenance. They do not need to wait for the crop.
For example, I was talking to Dreyfus, a trading company, They said that there's something which is burst always in the middle of the crop. Like a tube will always break in the middle of the crop. I said, "That's what we're here for. We are going to do preventive maintenance. We are going to use all the data so that the best decisions will be made." We are going to be part of this transformation. As I said, I'm very enthusiastic. Last week we had a meeting. Maybe Piero could mention about it. We had a strategic alignment meeting last week, which was very fruitful. That gave us very clear direction for the next steps, the next three or six months of what we are going to do.
I would also like to invite you, Marcelo, and everybody attending the call. We are going to be in the Agrishow in the city of Ribeirão Preto. We are going to have a booth, Procer and the Kepler side by side. We are going to be able to share everything that we are discussing with you now in this event.
We received a question from Faye Suarez. Considering that there was a downturn for the products of the company, how much of the share buyback has been completed?
Thank you for the question. Our share buyback was approved by the board last month. We started our silence period. We didn't have a lot of time to repurchase or rebuy the shares. It's a program that's going to be open along the year, so every day we are monitoring the market, and as we understand the reason to do the buyback, we will do that. We have already bought one digit, and we are going to continue this process.
Our next question comes from Joseph Mendes. How is the company operating the north region, especially in ports and terminals?
Joseph, thank you very much for the question. Prospects are excellent. As you saw in the release, we completed the project in Bahia. The growth of agricultural is in the north region. We installed two distribution centers in Pará and in Maranhão. As we mentioned, we had the board approved to bring in two other distribution centers in the area. We have major projects for the northern region of Brazil.
Our next question comes from Leandro Lessa with Leotech.
What were the main changes at the company that would justify for the investors to disregard the lack of success in the past?
Leandro, thank you very much for the question. If we look at Kepler's history, especially in the past few years, you can see that our focus was on profitability to make the company profitable, keep it in healthy levels, leverage the potential it has. Of course, I'm not going to go into details. We have this top of mind. We have excellent coverage. The product portfolio is excellent. Products are recognized as being quality products. We are very good at providing solutions. Our planning was focused on profitability and then focused on the sustainability of this profitability.
I'm not going to go into all the details, but we had actions in all areas of the company, especially to maintain this sustainability of the profitability. As Bernardo mentioned before, coverage in the northern region, we have an additional area which is focused on the MATOPIBA. We have all the area of the technical assistance, of both sales, in our R&S segment. If we look at five years ago, we had a very big increase in the revenues, and we are now selling at BRL 250 million, and we are likely to reach BRL 500 million. We analyze separately farm and agribusiness because the go-to-market is, and the dynamics is different.
Everything leads the company to be stronger in order to maintain the good margins, to have good management of the market, and respond very quickly depending on the challenges that are posed to us. There's also the internal points of the company, such as lean manufacturing, cost management. There are many actions being taken. In human resources, personnel, we have a big concern to have a motivated team, to have a team that is being developed. We are the 17th-best company to work for in Rio Grande do Sul. There are many actions that take the company to a different level of management, and this is all bringing more resilience to the company in order to face up to the adverse scenarios that we might have to take care of.
The next question comes from John Moeda Silva. Is it possible to think about entering dividends for the next quarters?
John, thank you for the question. For me to answer your question, I'll have to go back to what Bernardo and Piero said. 2023 is a year which is likely to be very successful to the company. 2022 was an exuberant excellent year, since we managed to pay dividends in both half of the years, since we have a very robust cash generation. Cash generation will continue to be robust, and it will allow us to pay dividends for the half of the year. We are going to discuss this at the board. Piero, can you continue, please?
Okay. I'll take over since Paulo cannot speak now. We are constantly evaluating what to do with our cash. We are going to reevaluate in the second half what we're going to do with our cash, as we did in 2022. Now talking about investments, which is part of your question, I would like to say that we are constantly allocating the cash of the company if we are going to distribute more dividends or if we are going to invest in projects for automation, technological improvement, gains in productivity, gains in capacity of stock buyback. We are considering all this, all the possibilities. We are going to stop and evaluate what to do with the cash, then we are going to define what we're going to do with the cash.
Last year, we allocated a large amount to the payment of dividend and also to the renewal of the production. As Paulo said, we do not need a lot of investment in order to increase our capacity. It's a constant management of how we are going to allocate the cash of the company.
I would like to remind you that to ask a question, use the Q&A icon and write your name and the name of your company, please. Marcelo Bernardes has asked a question as follows. I'm going to summarize Marcelo's question so that we can answer it. In the earnings call in the fourth quarter of 2022, you mentioned margins and sales, which were dissimilar. In first quarter, there was a difference in the revenues and supremacy, and he asks what happened, etc. We are going to make some comments.
He's asked if the company was aware that we would have a quarter which would be lower than that of last year. He's asking about our direction and comparing the two periods. He asks about the difference of sales and revenues and income.
It's a little bit of what we mentioned in the call, but we are going to go over all those topics. Would you like to complete anything now ? It's okay. Go ahead. As Paulo mentioned, we do not provide guidance. We look at the perspective across the year. We continue very optimistic for 2023. In terms of comparisons, we have to say that the seasonalities are like I mentioned, that last year was very exuberant in terms of including constant demand. This year, we go back to the normalcy.
We are very optimistic in relation to 2023. Everything is very favorable for the results of the first half of the year. We expect TCA to be good. Because in doing that, we have record crops. We have lots of problems solved in terms of storage. We believe that the PCA is going to be very strong and we are very close to the government and with the Ministry of Finance to show how PCA is important in order to play a good role in food safety and other aspects. We are very optimistic for 2023, and it's obviously going to be more concentrated in the second half of the year.
One question came from Tadeu Iron. Good morning. I would like to know what would be the perspectives for the international business segment. Thank you.
Hello, Tadeu. Thank you very much for the question about international business. This is a segment which is very focused by our organization. We have a leadership in Brazil and also in Latin America. Our main market for exports in Latin America is Paraguay, and there are Brazilian producers who plant in Paraguay, and there was a very significant drought, and that affected the demand. We're always trying to look at the investigation. Our team was in Africa in April. We are going to take part in the Agrishow in South Africa in May together with Apex. We look at the African continent in a very positive way for our international business. There's also an important negotiation going on. We would like to share it with you in the next earnings call.
The question and answer session is closed. We turn the call to Ms. Piero Abbondi for his final remarks.
Thank you very much for the interest in our company. I would like to summarize, say that we are very optimistic, as I said, for 2023. We delivered good results in the first half of 2023. The external scenario is very positive. We have a record crop of 313 million tons. Prospects are that we're going to have another record crop reaching 330 million. We are also monitoring the profitability of the producers. We are on the watch out in terms of the cost of inputs, the profitability of the growers will go back to very good levels. Without any doubt, this is going to boost our business.
There is a bit confusion in commodities in the markets, especially in the past, 15 days with negative premiums. People are facing difficulties with the crops. Prices in Brazil dropped more than the prices of Chicago's. Chicago's prices are stable, and the premiums in Brazil are very high. The solution to that is to have enough storage capacity. The grower that can store for three or four months, without any doubt, the prices are going to be much better. The producers' pay is going to drive our sales in the next months. This is what we are looking at. We see a lot of interest. We see that the pipeline is very large, lots of quotations, and we are very optimistic. In the internal side, we see that the company is doing its homework. It's getting prepared for this growth. We are delivering good results.
We made movements and significant investments in the past few years, showing the resilience of the company. As you saw, all the segmentation strategy, we are focusing more on the agribusiness and farms to deliver specific values to those segments. Also with different dynamics to the way we sell the product themselves. Our concern is to deliver higher value, and we want to continue to be a premium company with a price differential considering the competitors. All the post-sales and technical assistance and the R&S, all this has been growing significantly. Now we have Procer and lots of initiatives and services. We see a lot of potential of growth in this area. We're at plans. We implemented lean manufacturing. We manage cost and expenses. This will lead the company to become even more resilient. We are covering the national territory. We are capturing cross-opportunities.
Bernardo has just mentioned international business. We are also going into new territories. Procer will allow us to meet our clients in a better way and provide more services, as well as making more sales of our technical assistance related to our products. We are going to open new opportunities in digital services. To the rural producers, those who have a post-harvest plant, we are very prepared, we are very optimistic. We are going to continue to build this competitive edge. Kepler has this price premium. We also have this competitive advantage. We are going to continue along this line in order to deliver good results and better value to our clients and shareholders. I would like to thank you very much for attending this event. It was an honor to be here with you. We changed the format a little.
I think it was very nice to be able to be with you closer. I would like to thank you for your attention, and I hope to see you in the next call. Have a nice week, everyone.
The earnings video conference of Kepler Weber is now closed. Should you have any questions, refer them to the investor relations team via email at ri.kepler@kepler.com.br. We would like to thank you for your participation, and have a nice day.