Good afternoon and welcome to Unipar's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today we have here with us Rodrigo Cannaval, the CEO, and Alexandre Jerussalmy, the CFO and Director of Investor Relations in the IR team. This event is being recorded and all participants will only be listening to the conference call during the presentation. The presentation can be accessed through the MZRQ platform and on the company's website in ri.unipar.com. The slide stack can be controlled by you, and the audio of this event will be available on the company's website after it ends. After the presentation, we will start with the questions and answers session. Questions can now be posed via webcast and will be addressed either throughout the session or after the conference is over by the IR team.
Before we proceed, we would like to clarify that any potential statements eventually made during this conference regarding business prospects, projections, operational, and financial goals constitute the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management as well as information currently available at Unipar. Forward-looking statements are no performance guarantor and involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should understand that general conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors can affect Unipar's future results and could lead to results that are materially different from the ones expressed in such future conditions. Let me now give the floor to Rodrigo Cannaval, who's going to start with his presentation. Please, Rodrigo, proceed.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Just before we open our conference call on operating and financial results for the first quarter of 2024, I would like on behalf of Unipar to express our empathy and solidarity with all the people from the state of Rio Grande do Sul and their beloved ones deeply affected by the floods that are plaguing the southern part of Brazil. We're all touched by this tragedy, and let me emphasize that we are all engaged in contributing to the population of the state. We have analyzed internally on what would be the best way to contribute, and we realize that our participation could be very valuable through the donation of cleaning and sanitizing products to hospitals, schools, and shelter homes. We are now working in order to make this front feasible through local partners, obviously observing the logistical challenges that are still present.
This is the right time for everyone to contribute. Now, let's start with our presentation, and let me start by highlighting that we've just formalized our executive team last April, starting by myself who took over on April the 18th the presidency and the leadership of this company. We have also hired our two financial and investor relations officer, Alexandre Jerussalmy. He's going to be here with us during this call, and it's going to be his first teleconference call. Together with Alexandre de Castro, who's been already announced in the position of Chief Commercial Officer, we hope to work with all the leadership and employees in order to continue with our strategy that aims to continue growing sustainably, being reliable in everything we do. So during this first quarter, we observed the continuation of global instability scenario that put considerable pressure on supply chains and inflation.
And if we observe the petrochemical market in Brazil, we have been facing huge pressure from the import share that has been growing gradually in recent years, and just recently it has reached close to 50% of total consumption in the country. That comes to play at the same time that the idleness in Brazil's chemical industry that used to generate jobs and local investment has reached 36% in the first quarter. The North American chemistry is one of the main offenders because it counts in the benefit of having significantly lower production costs than the ones here in Brazil and much cheaper raw materials and natural gas. The sector here in Brazil has been working in order to recover its competitiveness, acting through its associations together with the federal government and Mercosur. But our role as a company is definitely doing our homework.
We are focused on our day-by-day in doing our operational excellence and being resilient. Our results for this quarter reflect our success. In Argentina, we have been following this recent period of implementation of the new economic policies promoted by the new elected government, and that has caused a reduction in economic activity on the short term. The Argentine consumer market has shown low activity, and important sectors for our operations, such as public works and civil construction, are on a standstill. Now, regarding international price references, there was a slight increase in the prices during the first quarter if compared to the Q4 of 2023, but still remaining at very low levels reflecting this downward cycle. In the first quarter, the average utilization rate of Unipar's production capacity was 83%.
That level already considers the increased capacity of Santo André, the weather event in Argentina, and the slowdown of the Argentine market. It is also worth noting that our electrolytes production in Brazil has reached the company's second highest historical level, with a total of 120,000 tons in the quarter. And even in this downturn, we still maintain our long-term strategic view, investing in structuring projects aiming at improving our performance and resilience. And all of that is still aligned with our sustainability pillar. We are pretty much aligned with the technology modernization schedule of the Cubatão plant, with the highest CAPEX of Unipar's history reaching BRL 1 billion, expected to be completed in 2025.
Once this project is ready, we will have the largest membrane operation in South America, in addition to bringing efficiency and operational gains and competitiveness, as well as a reduction of 70,000 tons of CO2 per year. Our new Camaçari unit in Bahia is also within schedule with an estimated startup for the last quarter of this year. Let me now turn the floor to Alexandre Jerussalmy. Good afternoon, Alexandre.
Thank you, Rodrigo.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. It is an honor and a pleasure for me to be here with you this afternoon for the earnings conference call of the first quarter of 2024. This presentation is available at the MZIQ platform as well as on our own Unipar RI platform. Let me talk to you a little bit about the net revenue and bear in mind that our figures have been impacted by the IAS 29 accounting standard. Because of the implementation of the standards, we are going to mention the results in an adjusted manner. As I said, we have basically reached BRL 1,136 million. We had a reduction of 8% below the revenue of Q4 of last year. That reduction mainly occurred due to the lower production and sales volumes in Argentina.
Bear in mind that Argentina experienced a climate event December last year, specifically in the area of Bahía Blanca. Because of this event, we had a shutdown of our plant, and not only our plant, but many other plants in the region, and causing a blackout. We had this gradual resumption of the Argentinian plant in January, in February, in mid-February. Our plant was already running under normal activity. Well, in terms of sales volume, we've had a constant volume from one quarter to the next. And that was basically due to the very good performance exhibited here in Brazil in the first quarter of this year. As Rodrigo just mentioned, we had a record, which was the second largest electrolysis volume here in Brazil, reaching 120,000 tons.
With this very good Brazilian performance and a good performance in Argentina, still under the effects of the climate event, our turnover represented 77% here of the total revenue. In Argentina, that represented 23%, while in the previous quarter, it actually represented 33%. In terms of prices, our prices are still under pressure despite the slight recovery that we experienced in the quarter. This is still characteristic of a downward cycle in values that are still under pressure. Now, moving to the EBITDA figures, our adjusted EBITDA was BRL 232 million, which was somewhat in line with the previous quarters. Our EBITDA margin has maintained or was maintained in 20%.
I would like to pause here and say that a 20% EBITDA margin in this downward cycle, and also considering this drop on Argentinian production, is another very good example of resilience of our business model here at Unipar. With regards to the net profit for the first quarter of 2024, we had a drop vis-à-vis to last quarter. And if we compare the figures, it's 65%. Now, if we exclude the positive effect of the fiscal credit from Lei do Bem collection of BRL 46 million, then this drop is 51%. So again, the net profit of the first quarter was of BRL 56 million. Now, moving to the next slide, when we check the capital structure and the equity structure, and we start with the cash flow, we had this operational cash generation of BRL 25 million.
We also had some annual expenses that we incurred during this quarter, and basically renewing insurance policies with specific taxes that are paid once a year. We also had BRL 75 million with income tax and social contribution, BRL 98 million with CAPEX. We have captured a fund in line of BRL 500 million. We also did the dividend distribution in BRL 109 million in this last quarter. So altogether, if we sum up all those effects, we had a very positive cash variation of BRL 115 million. That was our cash balance. We finished the month of March with BRL 2 billion BRL 261 million in cash, which represents a net debt of BRL 351 million. So if we compare it to the last 12 months, EBITDA debt reflects a leverage ratio of 0.37x, and with an average term of that of 3.25 years.
So that average term is something that we hope to work in the coming months in order to have it stretched. Just recently, in April, in our shareholders' assembly, we had a decision to distribute bonuses to our shares from one to 10. So that increase in the capital share of BRL 242 million was approved. This share bonus in the proportion of one new share for every 10 shares was what we did. With this movement, we had a readjustment in the company's net equity reserve accounts. In a summary, our resilience has been tested, and we've presented a cash generation with a debt profile that was considerably adequate with a healthy leverage ratio. With that, we are pretty ready to catch potential growing opportunities that will present to Unipar and the market.
So with that, I would like to pause and give the floor back to Raquel. Let's now move to the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now start with the Q&A session. Questions will be addressed as they are received. We have here a question from Lucidio.
It asks about the net profit that had a reduction with regards to the previous semesters. And I wanted to know, what are the expectations with regards to the net profit?
Thank you, Lucidio, for the question. So the net profit of the first quarter actually suffered the effects of the accounting standard, which is IAS 29. The total effect of the first quarter was BRL 6 million-BRL 7 million. So indeed, from one quarter to the next, we have some variation in those effects of those standards' application. We have some exchange rate variations.
And obviously, whenever we look at the first quarter, we also had the effects of an EBITDA still under pressure given the spectrum chemical downward cycle that at some point will indeed be reverted. So in a nutshell, that's what explains the main variations with regards to the level of net profit that we had in the first quarter.
So we have another question from Pedro Macedo from Meta Asset.
And he asks about the occupation rates of the plants and whether you understand that if Argentina will keep on showing deceleration or not.
Thank you, Pedro. Thank you for your question. Well, you see, starting by the Argentinian landscape and being frank with you, we have been following this up very attentively. The government has been applying many efforts in order to lower the inflation.
We had the recomposition of international reserves, the reduction of the reference interest rates of the country, and an improvement of the fiscal situation. For the coming months, if the government measures are effective and if the reforms are approved by both the upper and lower houses of Senate, there are good expectations of a good economic upturn. As a natural consequence of that, we hope to have a good demand recovery in order to resume some of the public works that have been halted the first quarter, precisely because of this inflation reduction, right?
Give us another minute so that we can check if we have other questions. Well, we happen to have a question from Arthur Lopes from Citibank. He's got two questions.
Actually, what basically drove the consumption of the working capital, especially in the accounts receivable, and the impacts of the application of the IAS 29 standard since it doesn't have a cash effect?
Good afternoon, Arthur. Let me start by the last question about the impact of IAS 29 standards without the cash effect. Well, whenever the standard is enforced, it basically does the inflation adjustment in both the liability and the surplus. So in the assets, whenever we have an impact, the stock account, for instance, the immobilized, and the intangible accounts, those are the accounts. So indeed, whatever you see, those balances, this is going to be adjusted, right? And then that has an impact on our statements. But we don't really have a cash effect of those adjustments. So this is what we can say about IAS 29.
Now, with regards to the working capital, I mean, with the reduction and the deceleration of the inflation in Argentina, we can say that many clients have started to buy installments or with the forward payment. It used to be upfront, but now, for some reason, they are asking for deferred payment terms. So that would be one of the effects. And the other effect is the conversion rate from pesos to reals, our functional currency here in Brazil. So those were basically the two effects that have led us to use and to consume working capital in the first quarter.
We have another question from Eloisa from StoneX.
What is the status of the export processes from Argentina?
Thank you, Eloisa. Well, the exports sorry, the exports from Argentina in this moment are slightly more complex. We have two ongoing in the maritime field and for the terrestrial ones.
Obviously, after the dramatic events that have affected the south part of the country, this has been severely affected. But except for the climate conditions, I mean, the exports from Argentina are normalized.
Thank you. And we are checking if we have more questions. Right. We do have a question from Vidal Morato.
He would like to know whether the company is seizing this very positive and attractive moment from the stock market to work with the shares.
Well, thank you, Vidal, for your question. And I would assume that your question is due to some of the buybacks that we did. The last one, actually, was in January, right? So I can say that we have been seizing and making the best out of this opportunity. And in a timely manner, we hope to keep on doing that. But obviously, that varies according to the circumstances.
It's not that we have a continuous program to be executed as of yet. We have another question from Pedro Macedo from Meta Asset Management. He asks about the timing of the company's expectation with regards to international prices. Is this quarter the turning point? What is your expectation towards the end of the year, beginning of 2025? Well, despite we have observed price stability of the PVC of the last quarter of 2024 vis-à-vis for the first quarter of 2024 towards the last quarter of 2023, I mean, it's very unlikely that we're going to have a recovery of international prices on the short term.
Right. We have another question from Pedro Macedo from Meta Asset Management.
Do you have any updates on the cost initiatives? Because according to him, they consider some margins improving along the year of 2024, right? Yeah.
Thank you, Pedro.
Well, the company has been continuously investing on cost optimization programs demonstrating our resilience. We have just announced our solar and wind energy. So that definitely contributes to the reduction of operating costs. We have another ongoing project, which is the Cubatão technological update that is going to contribute to operating cost reduction and contribute with our emissions reductions target. So those are the main initiatives at the moment that are underway for cost reductions in the company.
Thank you, Cannaval. Well, in case we have no further questions, we would like to close our Q&A session. And we would like to invite you, Rodrigo, to give your final remarks.
Well, we have reached the end of another Unipar results presentation. And before closing, let me reinforce some important points that were covered. So we remain very resilient going through this downward cycle, delivering quality and consistent results.
We continue to invest in the future with structuring projects and addressing this last question that we got from Pedro. Our capital structure and access to diverse funding sources are very good levers to ensure our growth with portfolio diversification and also expansion into new geographies. We remain committed to generating value at Unipar. I also would like to reinforce our special thanks to partners and collaborators for their commitment in delivering our strategy and to investors and advisors for their trust and support. We once again express our empathy towards the population of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and their beloved ones. Thank you very much for attending this session. Alexandre Jerussalmy, welcome to our conference call.