Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for holding. Welcome to CCR S.A. third quarter of 2023 earnings conference. We would like to inform you that this presentation is being recorded and simultaneously translated. Interpretation is available under the button labeled Interpretation. If you're listening to the conference in English, you can also mute original audio in Portuguese by selecting Mute Original Audio. Before we proceed, we would like to clarify that any statements made during this conference are related to the company's business outlook, projections, operating and financial targets, are based on CCR's management's beliefs and assumptions, as well as information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they relate to future events that therefore rely on circumstances that may or may not materialize.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, the state of the industry and others, can lead to results that are materially different from those expressed in these statements. Now, I would like to turn over to Mr. Miguel Setas, CEO of the CCR Group. Please, Mr. Miguel, you may proceed.
Thank you to our operator. Welcome everyone to this conference call for the CCR Group, referring to the third quarter of 2023. I'm here with Waldo Pérez and Flávia Godoy, investor relations director, and we're going to give you a summary of our highlights for the quarter. I would like to begin by mentioning that last week we concluded the sixth, the six months, period since I came to this position in the company.
It was very significant for a company and for strategic, its strategic, position, because we concluded a strategic plan that was presented to the market during the CCR Day we had with our investors, where we presented our 6 priorities. First, profitable growth. Secondly, having an optimized portfolio. Third, efficiency. Fourth, optimized, capital structure. Fifth, leadership at ESG. And sixth, sixth, world-class, competences. So these were the 6 activities we presented on which our strategic plan is based. It's based for the long and the short term, but it's also, for our, value generation program for the next, months. The plan that we implemented in the last months had 15 structuring initiatives focusing on different dimensions of the, strategic plan, and it was expanded for a further 10 more.
So now we have 25 being implemented, which will deliver on four essential dimensions of our plan: growth, efficiency, returns, and leadership in ESG, and the quality of our profits. So I'd like to briefly say that the third quarter results were very favorable. On one hand, we had sustained growth in our demand, which has been posted sustainably for the last few quarters, and besides that, we have rigorous cost controls. As you'll see during our CFO's explanation, we had a like-for-like reduction of 3.6% in cash expenses, comparable in comparison to last year. It's also important to mention that we had an agreement that was extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic for lines for the lines that we manage. So this is a significant part of our portfolio. Also, I'd like to mention CapEx.
The company continues to be correct in its movements, and in the third quarter of 2022, we had BRL 4.2 billion in CapEx, which is more than twice what we had during this time in 2022. Finally, I'd like to mention our ESG agenda. Throughout the last months, we've also seen significant advances there. One of them needs to be highlighted. The CCR Group was the first company in the mobility and infrastructure industry in Brazil that had its carbon emission goals met according to the Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi. So this is an important indicator of our commitment towards being carbon neutral. This has been communicated to the market, especially during the CCR Day, and our commitment is to have 100% of green energy in our three modals.
We hope to use sustainable fuels in all of our light fleet by 2025. Finally, the company was publicly acknowledged this quarter as well for by social communication companies for its performance in the industry as being the best company in the mobility industry in Brazil. So we were very proud, and we celebrate that because it confirms what the company has attempted to do in the last years. So that's it from me. I'll pass it over to Waldo Pérez, the company's CFO, and I'll conclude later on.
Thank you, Miguel. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with the highlights for the third quarter of 2023. Considering our demand, we had a very solid and consistent growth in demand this quarter across all of our modals. In highways, we had an increase of 4.2% in equivalent vehicles.
For Urban Mobility, we had 7.4% increases, and in airports, an increase of 11.1% comparing the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023. Looking at highways, commercial vehicles had a growth of 3.4%, a positive highlight for agricultural to port routes. So, AutoBAn, SPVias, and others were the best this quarter, and we also had significant improvement in the performance of SPVias São Paulo, starting to charge for suspended axles, and this increased our demand by 5%, or 4.4%, and 5.1% respectively. These results will be consistent for the future, and they have a significant impact on our demand. Light vehicles grew 5.6% above what we saw in previous quarters, and this represents the economic recovery of the post-pandemic period.
In Urban Mobility, ViaQuatro was our highlight. 9.4% increases due to higher circulation rates, considering the activity of services and retail. We also saw an economic recovery in downtown Rio de Janeiro, and there have been higher traffic congestion in the Rio-Niterói Bridge, which increases our demand. Airports, the highlight here was international airports. Quito and Aeris had increased number of flights, and we also saw higher occupation rates across the board. In Curaçao, we also saw higher occupation rates for the flights they already have. So we had significant, significant performance increases this quarter. Continuing with costs. Discipline and cost control was very good this quarter. During CCR Day, we talked about our ambition to have operational efficiency in the top quartile.
So our OpEx cash on net revenue, our goal is to reduce it, and we're on the track to do it. Our cost discipline allowed us to extend our EBITDA margin by 4.4 percentage points this quarter. And our cash cost decreased by 3.6% between the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023. So it was an expressive and important result in our cost control strategy. When we look at the impacts between these two quarters, starting with third-party services, we saw an increase in BRL 4 million. The main highlights here were the removal of BRL 30 million concerning TAS operation and operations that we no longer have, and increased expenses in maintenance and signaling Rio SP amounting to about BRL 10 million.
Concession fee costs increased according to the demand, so we have a variable concession fee according to demand. Personnel costs had a reduction of BRL 35 million since we no longer have TAS, but we also had an increase of 5.57% due to contract cancellations. When we look at other costs, here we had a reduction in BRL 506 million of the sales of TAS, which we saw in the first half of 2023, and also the TC for lines eight and nine, BRL 150 million, and investments in ViaOeste, which are considered other costs. So the cash cost of the third quarter was BRL 1.294 billion. Recognizing these investments in the ViaOeste, in those lines eight and nine, our total cost was BRL 3.2 billion.
We had great performance this quarter. It impacts our EBITDA directly. We saw increased demands, reduced costs, and that led to an increase of our adjusted EBITDA of 8.4%, and we also saw increased EBITDA in all our models. This increase in urban mobility was 24.5%, for example, and in airports, 38.1%. When you look at the gray part of the bar in urban mobility, we can see that this was the effect of the different inflation indexes on financial assets. So depending on the concession, we used IGP-M, IPC or IPCA. The difference in inflation between the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2023 is what generated this positive impact to EBITDA in mobility. Net income for the third quarter was BRL 252 million.
Starting with the adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter and adjusting it for non-cash adjustments and non-recurring EBITDA, we had 1.6 billion minus depreciation and amortization. Net financial results and income tax takes us to our net income. However, when we deduce the non-recurring adjustments, which were BRL 250 million, we had an adjusted net income of BRL 502 million, which is quite relevant for this quarter for the CCR Group. Looking at investments, as we said during the CCR Day, we have a de-risking agenda, so we're focused on executing and delivering on our investment plan.
During the third quarter of 2023, we concluded BRL 1.33 billion in investment, and that includes the costs of ViaOeste, because that is an investment, and and this was an increase of 30.2% versus the third quarter of 2022. When we look at the first nine months of 2023, we had a record of 4.19 billion, so 31.4% higher than the same period in 2022. Looking at the main investments for this quarter, we have lines eight and nine receiving BRL 226 million in acquisition of rolling stock or new trains.
In Rio SP, we had BRL 274.5 million invested in pavement recovery, expropriations, duplications, and in ViaSul, BRL 132.6 million in pavement recovery, additional lanes and duplications in some stretches of Highway BR-386. So again, it's a de-risking agenda that is focused with consistent deliveries on this front. Finally, looking at our balance, we have controlled leverage. Our debt profile is being lengthened, and we have a very robust position, which allows us to look at new opportunities in a very selective way, prioritizing capital allocation. We finished the third quarter with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.9x or BRL 22 billion. We had three captures during the quarter, one with VLT Carioca, one with Pampulha, and one with ViaSul, a total of BRL 978 million. Our holding net debt reached BRL 4 billion.
As we said, our ambition is that this net debt will be zero. So we're going in the right direction towards that goal. And when we look at our amortization schedule, we have a very comfortable cash position, BRL 7.6 billion. And as we discussed during the CCR Day in 2023, this is already balanced. And when we look at 2024, we have something new here. We have some bridge loans composing these BRL 6.4 billion, and now all we have to work on is the bridge loans for Rio SP that are due in December 2024. So if we look at our amortization schedule for 2024, it's BRL 1.2 billion + BRL 2 billion, so BRL 3.2 billion that we have to address, meaning that we're in a very comfortable position.
This all takes us to our conclusion. During this quarter, we had a very expressive demand. We were able to control costs, we had operational efficiency, and this is all in line with what we planned for. We're always seeking better rates. De-risking has been very intensive, so we're focusing on delivering on our investment plans, and we're opening more and more space in our balance through reduced leverage and by optimizing our capital structure so that we can find new opportunities selectively. So that concludes our results session. I'll pass it back to the operator. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the questions and answer session. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can click on the Q&A button and type your name and the company you are representing, or you can also click on the Raise Hand button.
If your question has been answered, you may lower your hand. When your name is called, you will get a request to turn on your microphone. You may then unmute yourself and ask your question. The first question will be asked by Mr. Guilherme Mendes from JP Morgan. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. This is Miguel. I have a couple of questions. So, Miguel, after your first six months, considering what you presented during the CCR Day and now, what do you think are the main challenges to reach the goals that you've received? And what keeps you up at night among those challenges? Finally, if you can tell us a little bit about the competition that you have for new assets, not only your pipeline, but the potential clients that might be interested in highways and urban mobility. Thank you.
Thank you, Guilherme. So let me answer your first question. I'd like to highlight that during the first six months, we were able to with the board create a strategic vision, right? So we defined a base strategy for the company for the next years. So during the CCR Day, we also talked about our medium to long-term view. We want to present to the market a vision that looks towards the long term. I feel that the board and the executive team is now very clear on our priorities. This makes me feel very comfortable. It makes me feel that our route is defined. We have received a lot of support from the board about this strategy, so I confess that nothing really keeps me up at night considering this context, right? We have a unique strategical clarity.
After six months, it's great to see how well our executive team is doing. There are four results that we want with this strategic plan as I said in the beginning. We have a sustainable growth agenda that will allow us to give profitable growth, but obviously, this requires attention. We need to look at the opportunities pipeline, as you said in your question. The level of competition that we're going to face for these growth opportunities is something that we need to pay attention to. Efficiency. We are committed to reducing our operational costs, cost structure, and this will allow us to have cash OpEx over net debt of 32%. So how do we deliver on this commitment? This quarter is validating how the company is looking at its cost structure very well.
So I think that's a very important thing. We also have to look at all the inflation pressures, commodities in the international market. I think this is a dimension that requires attention. Another of our pillars is returns. So we're focused on providing reserve returns on capital costs. So the shareholder return with investors, for everyone investing in the company, you know, we want to make our returns attractive, so we're focused on that dimension as well. And of course, we need to have good leverage. We need to have credit quality. So I would also say that this is a point that makes our strategy sensitive, and afterwards, there's a quality dimension, considering ESG. And as we said to the market, we want to be leaders there. We're also pressured to have leaders on the frontline ahead of the competition.
So we have four main points to pay attention to, as I mentioned, and honestly, Guilherme, none of it keeps me up at night. We're very focused on delivering on these strategies, and quarter after quarter, we're demonstrating it very clearly. We can see that this strategy is being implemented very well. So this is our commitment. I don't know if you have anything to add, Waldo.
No, I think you said it very well. Our strategic plan has been very well defined. We have a number of initiatives focused on improving efficiency overall, not just in terms of costs. We also are focused on services, supplies. Most of the results that we have here have been a long time coming. Digitalization is another front that we will develop, and over time, we hope that it will provide more benefits and operational efficiency.
We had a hiring freeze this year. The company is also defining what its optimal structure will be. There's a number of initiatives that, you know, is in our strategy. We're focused on delivering on that, and I agree with Miguel, there's nothing that will keep us up at night.
The second question, Guilherme, I think we all recognize that the macroeconomic context of Brazil is becoming more stable, and this is the context that we see in many areas of the world that are competing for capital. Of course, we see that competition in Brazil will become more intense. During the last auctions, we saw new players participating besides the ones that we regularly see in our industry. Besides that, we're also seeing players from the financial industry.
We see international groups becoming stronger in Brazil, companies that are more related to civil construction. So we are aware that in the highways industry, this landscape is more serious. Urban mobility, 70% of the market is in private companies, so we have a very significant position. We've started seeing this during the last auctions, so we know that new players are coming in. New operators are getting prepared to participate during these auctions. And some companies from Asia, some international players are also joining these auctions, so that means that we're going to have more competition, and we are getting prepared for that.
That was very clear. Thank you, Miguel and Waldo.
The next question will be asked by Mr. Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco BBI. Go ahead, sir.
Hi. Good morning. Congratulations on your results.
I have a couple of questions. The first is about charging for suspended axles in São Paulo. If I'm not mistaken, that recently started. So if you could tell us a little bit about how that is going and what was the impact of that in October? My second question is, Waldo, you talked about the capital structure. It wasn't very clear for me, so I'm sorry if that question has been asked before, but when we look at the holdings debt, we see a downward trend. So are you working on any targets on when that debt will be reduced? So would that be--would that be done with dividend flows, or would you need to have any kind of operation, like capitalizing the holding or something like that? Thank you.
Thank you, Victor. Considering suspended axles, you're absolutely right.
In the state of São Paulo, we started those charges in early October. We had already been doing it in federal roads, in Rio SP and Sul and Costeira. The initial figures show an increase of about 3% of our revenue for commercial vehicles. So it's still early. We'll have to see how that's going to perform. And considering your question about capital structure, you can see that there was a reduction of the holding's net debt during this quarter. We hope that by the end of the year, we'll also have additional reductions. I can't give you a precise target date. Our goal is more for the long term. That, that's our ambition, at least, and we do believe that that will be possible with a number of factors.
Dividends from our occupations will certainly be relevant, but as we said in CCR Day, we're going to start recycling our capital when the time comes, and it will definitely be an additional contributing factor to reach our ambition.
Great. Thank you. The next question will be asked by Rogério Araújo from Bank of America. Go ahead, sir.
Hi. Good morning, Miguel, Waldo, and Flávia. Congratulations for your results this quarter. I'd like to talk about the cost reduction, and it came as a surprise for the market to see that reduction year-over-year.
During CCR Day, you mentioned a strategic plan that was going to be presented during the third quarter of 2024, and the company was still analyzing how these costs would be reduced, that you only had benchmarking, and that 3 margin points were something to be reached for tier one. So I'd just like to understand how this cost reduction connects to your cost-cutting plan. From what I understood in that waterfall graph that Waldo presented, there was a reduction in costs in TaaS included in those figures. Is that right? And if you could give us some more details on what has already been done and how representative it is for your SG&A and what has already been mapped, that would be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Rogério. Just one comment, and I'll pass it over to-... Waldo, since I joined the company, this message of efficiency has been discussed internally with our management team and even our business divisions. So from the moment I arrived in April, we set a target for our budget of a two-digit reduction. So as we're still analyzing, like you said, we announced this during the CCR Day, but since we're still analyzing or we're still creating a detailed plan to deliver on efficiency for the next years, we have some emergency measures, right? Recruiting, we have an admission plan, reducing these dimensions. So this is all ongoing, and it will contribute towards these results. This is not a recurring event. We're not saying that this will be the norm from now on.
We have a reduction of 3.6%, so this cost should be looked at at a flat base right now. The reduction this quarter has some one-off factors, so I wouldn't want you or the market, in fact, to have the perception that for the next quarters, we are going to stay at the same level. It was exceptional. But I'd just like to say that previously we mentioned that we were going to start this plan, and we've had some cost reduction results already. So we know that we need to go beyond that. We set 38% as a limit, for sure, as an upper cap. Obviously, we need to work to be below 38 during that time. So this, of course, is an effort that will take a couple of quarters to be delivered.
Yes, and as we communicated to CCR, we're still looking at that in detail based on benchmarks. So we need to see how we're going to challenge ourselves and how we're going to reach that in a recurring way. So there are measures that we have identified that, you know, we see some patches, and we're reviewing our contracts in details once again to see how we can optimize our contracts. We split recurring from strategic purchases, so we're focusing on contracts that represent 80% of our values. So this is a very important front. It will have a significant impact, and considering our CapEx, these costs will be expressive. Now, operational structure, as I said, we had a hiring freeze.
We're adapting our structure at the holding, and we're going to do it for the entire organization, and that will allow us to optimize the entire company. In some areas, we will require more efficiency. In some areas, we will require more experience. So this will also help us to contribute to our ambitions. And last but not least, viewing processes. Optimizing processes for the entire company will provide efficiency and cost reduction, whether it is improving quality and internal services, but also providing productivity, which is what we're focusing on. Looking at technology and shared services, we also have critical analysis of where we're doing well and how we can outsource some areas to have better services that are more efficient. So these are all initiatives that we're looking at.
It will take some time, as Miguel mentioned, but I think it's important to make it known that we're focusing on our strategy. Flávia, would you like to say anything?
Yes. Hi, Rogério. So to answer your question on TAS, as the company said during the earnings release, we presented non-recurring effects, and in July last year, in the third quarter of 2022, we had the sale, excuse me, of TAS. So that has been excluded from our results so that we have the same comparative base, and this is also shown in details, the effect that TAS had in other lines. So our representation was BRL 35 million in the services line. So again, this is a business that was taken out of the company's portfolio.
It was a strategy of the company adopted in 2022 to sell assets that were non-core, and we had this impact when we draw that comparison or when we put it on the same base.
Thank you. That was very clear. If you'll allow me, a question on, you know, the renegotiations for the Pecém via contract. How is that doing? We heard that the terms have already been negotiated between the company and the government. At least this is what was in the press. So what else can you tell us? What should we expect, in terms of, new CapEx, fees, revenue, and tier, if you can?
Hi, Rogério. Thank you for your questions. Yes.
So we created, with the government, a new contract for MS Vias, which includes accelerating investments and a new fee, and this is now being discussed in the Court of Accounts. So this is now being analyzed, and we're waiting for their feedback on that. Initially, we thought that this would have been concluded this year already, but it's likely that it will happen during the first quarter of 2024.
Thank you, Waldo. Have a good day, everyone.
The next question will be asked by Lucas Marquiori from BTG Pactual. Go ahead, sir.
Hi, everyone. I have two questions as well. First, I'd like to hear about the CapEx level. If I'm not mistaken, the company had a guidance for the year of BRL 7 billion-BRL 8 billion, and you're close to BRL 4 billion.
So are we expecting CapEx to go up during Q4, or will it go down for 2024? If you could give us an indication on what we should expect for 2024, that would be great. My second question is about the public bid that has been going on for nearly a month. So what has been your perception on that, looking at the figures and is the appetite for this project going up or down? So that's all. Thank you.
Great. So to answer about CapEx, yes, we still have some challenges in how fast these deliveries can go. Our teams have been engaged, engineering and our partners are aiming to deliver the figures that we promised for the end of the year. But of course, there are some events that are out of our hands.
So in Brazil, for example, we had some very rainy periods that went on for a long time. So to give you an example, we were only able to work for 2 days in the last month. So this kind of thing impacts how fast we can make our investments. In Lines 8 and 9, we're also having delays from our suppliers in delivering trains. So the global supply chain has been affected. So those are the main reasons why we're still running short, but it's not concerning. We're still paying attention, and we're focused on delivering on what we can for this new business. About next year, we're still starting the budget process for our 5-year plan, and this process will conclude in early January. So that will allow us to understand what investments will be required for the next 5 years.
About TIC, I don't think that this is any secret to the market. We've been looking at this project for many years. It connects to São Paulo's metropolitan region and our other lines. So, I think we're the most experienced company in Brazil to take on this challenge. It's similar to the challenges that we had with lines eight and nine, and we heard many things from other participants as this auction was organized, so that balanced the risks out from this project. There are still some relevant risks. We're looking at them in our processes, and of course, we're very interested in this new auction.
Great. Thank you everyone.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can click on the Raise Hand button. When your name is called, you will get a request to turn on your microphone.
You may unmute yourself and ask your question. The last question will be asked by Mr. Filipe Nielsen from Citibank. Go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on your results. Actually, the questions I had were mostly answered, but I did have a follow-up question about CapEx and one last question about airports. On CapEx, just to see if I understood it correctly, these problems that are out of control can be understood as a CapEx that is sliding towards the future, not an efficiency gain or de-risking in the CapEx strategy. Just to see if I understood it correctly. My next question is about airports. Connecting to the comment that was made on the CCR Day in Latin America, have you seen any airport assets, potential assets outside of Brazil? What new projects have you seen?
And if you could give us, give us some color on that, it would be great. Thank you.
Perfect. So about the CapEx, to make it clear, I think you touched on an important point. We have contractual obligations due to the concession, but these obligations are not based on calendar days, they're based on future demands. So we're making an effort to reach those dates. So what's not done this year that is mandatory, will necessarily continue next year, and so on and so forth. So yes, trains on lines eight and nine will be delivered, and whatever is not delivered this year will continue next year. The delay that I mentioned that we had in ViaSul due to the rain, if it's postponed by a couple of months, it will continue in February and March. So that's how concession contracts work.
What we're always looking at in our risk matrix is that the end delivery date is not postponed. So that's our focus. Considering airports, I'll let Miguel answer.
Yes, I can talk about that. During CCR Day, we try to be very clear about our strategy for airports. So we want to limit our exposure to that mode. So our strategy is to focus on the 20 airports that we have. We have some CapEx to execute, and we have been doing that in phases A1 and B, new routes for airports, and that's what we're focusing on. Considering, you know, our competition and how the market is doing, obviously, we're keeping an eye on those opportunities and what's happening in Latin America, because as we have already communicated, we think that it's possible to have partnerships and...
That will allow us to increase our footprint and will allow us to have more profitable airports with benefits. So not only from the regulatory perspective, but we're also looking at, for example, the situation in Mexico. But capital allocation in CCR Day is being done that way. Great. Thank you, everyone
. That concludes our questions and answer session. We will now turn it over to Mr. Miguel Setas for his closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, for being here. I'll be very brief, and thank you for listening to this call. As I said when I answered the first question, we're very engaged. We're focused on a strategy that was very clear for the company's board. As I said, we're totally supportive for the company's strategic next steps. That's what we're focused on. There are four value drivers.
We want to have sustainable growth, great efficiency, attractive returns, and we hope that we have high-quality profits. This is what our vision is, so that's what we're focusing on right now. We're excited about the company's future and our commitments to you and to the market is to have consistent deliveries. So that concludes it from my side. Thank you, everyone, and we'll see you next quarter.