Good morning. Please, be welcome to the presentation of results. You can access this video conference on YouTube, and the presentation is also available for download. We would like to inform that all the participants will be only watching this video conference during presentation, and then we have a Q&A question. Before we go on, I would like to reinforce that the prospective declaration has as a basis the beliefs of Vittia and the current information available for the company. Those declarations could involve risks and uncertainty because it is for future events and so dependent on circumstances that could happen or not. Investors, analysts, and journalists should take in that the events related to that could do that the results will be materially different from the declarations.
We have in this video conference Mr. Wilson Romanini, CEO, Mr. Alexandre Frizzo, CFO and RI director, and Henrique Ferro, P&D&I director. I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Wilson Romanini as we start the presentation. Please, Mr. Wilson.
Good morning you all. Now we are going to present the results of the second trimester. We have gross revenue about BRL 1.7 million, it is 29.74% less than 2022. We got BRL 66 million in second trimester, 25% more than first semester of 2022. So the bio register and BRL 55.1 million in the first trimester, 25.8%+ . That is aligned with the work that we are developing here in Vittia, wanting to have a great participation in the world of the biological products in general. The net revenue amount, BRL 72.8 million, 53.6%. It is a very stuck market. I am going to explain that before. When we take a look at the semester, we have a decrease of 29.3%, what represent BRL 23.7 billion. Second tri and BRL 2 million positive in first semester of 2022.
A very important point that I want to show, we always have a weak first semester in the previous year. In the 2022 and 2021, it is not usual. We are going to talk about that. In second trimester, 83% less regarding the first semester of 2022. CapEx, it is the total and BRL 2 million in the first semester of 2023. Our CapEx to have this process of increasing of productions, it stayed 22.5% less regarding 2022 and 2023, the first semester, 23.7% smaller. Talking about the performance, as I mentioned previously, we have a very unusual year in 2023. It is interesting that we always had a smaller first semester and a second semester have more results. So it is a concern of the rural farmer regarding the costs of the crops.
We see that that is going to be better because we have orders from July and August, 60% higher than the last year. When it talks about risks and opportunities, we have a scenario that is very interesting in the macro. The profitability stays to the farmer in all the harvest. It is a little bit harder, but the expectation is positive ahead. We have a good expectation for good harvest , and the farmer is very willing to adopt new technologies, mainly when we talked about biological products. So that is linked in what Vittia is been working with. As I mentioned, we are still intense in the platform, in investment, in our R&D. It is a very important point. It is a year that we accomplished, we achieved new clients, a work that we made in the past, 2021, 2022. We have a new portfolio of clients.
The increasing of our company, we are on the rural areas to give support to the farmers, and each moment we are developing to have a robust portfolio to deliver the performance that the farmer needs. Now I give the floor to Alexandre Frizzo. He is going to talk about the numbers.
Good morning. Talking about the sales performance, we have a decrease in all the business segments. In the biological pesticides, we had something different in the semester accumulation. I would like to highlight mainly the lines of commodities. The minor ones and the industrial products had something worse than the average of the company, because beyond the volume, those lines had a price issue. When we compare the average price of the first semester and second trimester with the previous year, we have an average price that is lower.
That is very clear when we take a look in our NPKs, the raw materials that comes from importation. We had a decrease in the order of 70% or 80%. That is something that suffered more. Thinking about in the year, are the lines that has We know that the price is going to impact of we are going to have in the beginning of the year. The foliar fertilizers and inoculants do not have this price issue. This decrease, we understand that it is more result because they postponed that, no, the season is other. That is the focus of the company, so we expect to reverse that in the second semester. The lines that we have commodities, we want to delivery a growth of volume, but because of the revision of the price, we are not going to have a nominal growth.
In the next slide, about the margin, we have a decrease in the margin of foliar fertilizer industrial product. In the trimester in the semester, this decrease, it is because the industrial product, because we have the composition of these two segments. The foliar fertilizer line, when you take a look at that separate, we have a lower margin, is almost stable. As I mentioned, those products are the ones that more suffer because of this market reversion, mainly because of the price. The biological products had an atypical behavior, and that is because of the mix. We had a mix of products with more values in the trimester, and we also had a closure of the semester that is inferior. When we take a look, not counting, we compare the products, we are keeping a very similar margin to the previous year.
We believe that there is not a perspective to close the year, not with a decrease or increase of margin in the lines. We could have results, consolidate results with some variations, because of the mix of the products that could have a better performance. About the soil micronutrients, we had a decrease also. It is a commodity line, but we have a decrease. It is a reflection of the non- Not because of the fixed price. In the part of soil conditioner and organominerals, we are facing a challenge linked to what happened in the market of NPK because of the price. We are suffering during, in the past trimester, we suffered when the price increased, and we cannot cover the portfolio.
With this decrease of price, at the end of the last year, we had some clients that paid the order, so we had an expensive stock and uncovered. We believe that the revision is going to happen in the second semester. It's an irrelevant volume, but we see that the sales are increasing. We don't have expensive stock that's so relevant that could impact the last semester of the year. In the next slide, besides the semester, with the reduction of incomes, we are still believing a good year and a good perspective in a long term to the company. This way, we are still investing in the company, in our commercial effort, our sales team, the management improvement, and the parts of research and development. We will have a growth of 14% in this semester. The trimester had a smaller growth, but it's a seasonal thing.
It's not linked to any kind of reduction or a strategy to decrease our plans of growth. Our adjusted EBITDA compared to semester had a reduction of 83% because of the reduction of incomes. The gross margin, we had something add, but with the decrease of the incomes volume, our SG&A had something important because this trimester has a smaller number of sales. The second trimester, historically, is the one that we sell less because we have this harvesting in between. We do not have profits. We have an atypical situation of an anticipation of orders and anticipation of incomes because of the delivery, because of the war, that they are afraid to not have the goods. This year we had a change on the scenario, and I think that's not something to go back to the historical pattern. We left a way to the opposite way.
The farmer this year is delaying the orders and the deliveries than the historical average. That's something different because of the season. The CapEx, we are having our investment plan. We conclude the second phase of the biological plants, which were our solid fermentation, doubling fermentation. In this way, we reviewed our planning to our biological plants, increasing the total capacity that we had, nine million of liters. In the second phase, we reviewed the capacity to five to six , and we have some adds in the investment part in the second and third phase. The positive news in this trimester, we had very healthy cash flow. It's a result of credit policy well-executed. We had a level of debt that was very low compared to the previous years, especially this year, where we had a delay of the commercialization of the harvest 2022, 2023.
We management our client portfolio, giving credit, and we have the cash flow that's higher than the last year. Reaching, achieving a position that's very comfortable. Because of the reduction of our EBITDA of the previous 12 months, we had a reduction of 26% comparing to the same periods of last year. In terms of financial results, we have financial less negative, and we have two reasons for that. The first one is the weight of the income that comes from the FP, that in 2023 was higher than 2022 is because of the rate. It was substantial from one semester to another, so it's less taxes, lower than that.
The part of income tax and social contribution, it's higher because of the prejudice that we have in the first trimester. In the prejudice at the end of the trimester of BRL 14 million , and a little bit, BRL 2 million . Now I'll give the floor to Henrique to talk about R&D.
Good morning to Vittia. It stays strong in the investment plan in research and innovation. In the first semester of 2023, we accumulated an investment of BRL 14 million, 31% regarding the first semester of 2022, the previous period. Talking about the second trimester, we invested BRL 6.9 million compared to the previous year. Regarding the number of professionals, we have 65 professionals dedicated to research and development. From that, 39 with an exclusive dedication to these projects. Regarding the main regulations and targets, we received six recommendations of new biologicals use targets. Recently we had the approval from the Agricultural Minister and IBAMA. We are waiting this register of new microbiological pesticides to control a plague that's very important with the whitefly that gives damage to the harvest in Brazil. Now I'll give the floor to Alexandre again.
Regarding our performance in the stock market, we are still having a valuation of our IPO and a positive performance in IBOV on the same period. We had an average amount in similar levels than the previous year, but we have an improvement. We had a new approbation of another plan, or the initial plan is two million of stocks, and we executed some of that. We approved a new plan in this level again of two million of stocks shares that's going to be reported according to the convenience. We have the change to Bradesco to BTG. Now we are going to start the Q&A session.
Now we're going to have the Q&A session to investor and analyst, so please click Raise the Hands button or the chat box and write your questions. Our first question comes from Gabriel Barra, an analyst from Citi.
Hello, Alexandre and Wilson, Thiago. Thank you. I'll take my question here. The first one is about the issue about sales. We have seen in the whole sector this delay of the order portfolio. I think that the big doubt is how that's going to increase in the second semester, because the second semester is so representative. I would like to hear something. You mentioned some points, but I would like to hear the details, how you are seeing this evolution in the last month. In August, I would like to know how this portfolio evolution, thinking about amount in an overview, what's the perspective in the rest of the year, if you could, a recovery of the amount.
The second point that has to do with that, it's about the margin. Let's say that since we have this IPO movement in the sector, we are seeing the inputs coming, the seeds and the other things. It's the first year that we are having seen scenarios that are a little bit different. The point is try to understand how works the margin dynamic of this fall of price. You have a percentage of margin that's stable, the cash flow generation, if the company would decrease in volume, in BRL by volume. If you could talk about this margin dynamic, if you think about the margin for this year, how much you could have of defense in this margin, in this lower price scenario.
Good morning, Gabriel. Talking about the first point of commercialization, we always have in agro the smaller first semester, and then we have something more robust on the second semester. This year is a very atypical year. We had several factors, the prices, the politics issue, so the market was afraid, and the farmer will try to seek the best results possible to have the best results. What we see, talking about Vittia, what is important, we came in the latest year doing this work that is necessary to conquer clients and the perception of the technology. This year of 2023, we had a lot of things based on this sense.
New clients, big groups, a clear perception of farmer, the great efficiency of the biological products. We have 42 commercial areas with 100% to control plagues and disease with biological products, with positive results and a lower Vittia is doing its work in a very intense way, and we are showing that in our distributor scenario and our final clients, the farmers. A very important point that I highlighted, we have July and August with higher intensity of order. We increased 60% regarding the last year, and we have a plan, a budget. It is a challenge one, but we understand that we are capable to reach that, to achieve that, and an important point, it is you talking about this atypical issue that is happening. We are going to have a very strong trimester than the first and second trimester, and we have a relevant loss.
I don't think that in the next trimester we could rebate that. We have the very clear with this delay and this way that the market is being conducted. We had a strong complement in what we are want to do, and we are going to have that showed in the fourth trimester. It is normal, that scenario. When you talk about margin, when you have a margin in about a price that has a lot of demand, we have a better result. But we have an expectation to bring this result to Vittia. We have two points that are relevant to increase the volume, what we are working on, and the other one is the mix. When we invert the mix, we would have a very interesting margin in the company. That is what I would like to clarify for you.
Just make a comment and to clarify some messages, we have a reversion from what we saw in the second tri, and the entrance of orders. The invoice that other thing, it is increasing step- by- step. The third trimester is going to be good, but we will have an EBITDA increasing accumulated. We hope that the last trimester, we would have a strong trimester linked to EBITDA, so we have an increasing in the results of the company. That is the issue regarding the seasons. The margin issue in our scenario, our expectation that we have a better margin than the last year. That is because of the mixed issue. The biologicals are keeping the margin, and what I have been said is that what had a decrease of price are the ones that had the highest price.
We did not have any readjustments of price that is relevant in the last year. It would not talk to this return movement as it happened in the basic pesticide. What we see is a prejudice in have a lower price linked to our lines that we called about commodity margins. Then we have a perspective to close the year with something worse than the beginning, and we do not hope to achieve our budget. But in the biological and foliar line, our expectation will be that we have margin similar to last year, and then we present some growth.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Mr. Fonseca, an XP analyst. Please unmute.
Remember that basically 50% of our operation have been doing with the farmers. We suffer a little less with this issue in the distribution sector. I think that another point to reinforce the distribution issue, Vittia has a policy that is a little bit different in the distribution process. Vittia is a company that do not gives exclusive, so it can have easy movementation in this sense. What I can say is that in this difficult moment of the distribution sector, Vittia has tranquility because of its position in the market, working with the farmers.
Great, Wilson. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Ricardo Viana, an analyst on Verde. The decrease of margin in the foliar pesticides is an issue of the decrease of price, or is it an issue of scale this economy in the nutrient balance?
If we report the foliar line pesticides along with the industrial products. 90% from what we see, in fact, it is an impact of the decrease of margin of the industrial lines, commodity products with no difference that suffered with this volatility, similar to the dynamic of the basic pesticide. Fertilizer, sorry. Foliars, when we take a look on that, it is a little bit lower than the last year, and I would say that that is because of the dilution of fixed cost. We do not hope for this year. We do not report in a separate way, but taking a look at on the foliar line, we do not hope to have a decrease of percentile margin. As I said, we hope to deliver at the end of the year, a nominal growth in the foliar lines.
But the industrial line, what happened, and I think that is very common, we had an stock turn to expensive price at the end of the year. Not only us, but the whole market. We had a market basically trying to finish the stocks. It is not our goal, so with not to end our stocks, we have prejudice on the industrial line. We have a very low profit. It was an issue of a margin that is not our goal. Our goal line in the fertilizer should deliver. That is going to show up in the second semester, because in this trimester, we do not sell foliar products.
Foliars in the second semester will have a representativeness that is higher regarding the industrial ones. We are not hoping a big impact of the decrease of margin. We will have a very similar one to the previous year, and a little growth in the line of foliars.
Our next question comes from Mr. Luis Guilherme, investor. Good morning. When will we have a normative of mineral and what is the pattern of this in the short and long term?
Before this issue of the basic goods and the start of the war, we saw in our operation and other organominerals operation, a gross margin between 20%-25%, and an EBITDA margin 10%-15%, depending on each company and the efficiency. That is what we saw before we bought Vitória Agro. Taking a look at the price that we can do, that is what we imagine. This pattern is inside a normalized operation. We are hoping for several semesters. We hope to see a reversion of that and see that normalized.
To complement this issue, we work with organominerals for a long time. We have this city, Serrana, and exactly what Frizzo mentioned, we have this margin from 10%-15%. We are excited to have the acquisition of Vitória Agro. It is a very famous market. It is very well perceived by the farmers. When we joined Vitória Agro, it is a higher scale to the one that we have in Serrana city. We took something that is the opposite. We have the first year where the market had its growth. We had some deficiency in the supply issue. We do not have a good plan for that. We were took by surprise. We had orders, and we bought the raw materials. We had some problems of communication. Then in 2022, we solved to have something more adjust.
We still were took by surprise regarding where we had business, closed business, raw materials that we bought, and we did not have the clients paying for the orders. That happened with several companies of this sector. Now in 2023, we entered, as I mentioned, we are well-adjusted in the raw materials. We had an accident of raw materials that are very expensive, and we did our work to clean this business, and we understand that is the process that you want to be fast. It is ending. I think in the next year, we will have a better structure, and we are going to normalize this market. It is harder to give excuses to you. I do not like that, and I do not want you to see that, but we are going to try to reverse this picture, and we are going to have that normalized.
If you would like to make a question, click on raise hands or in the chat box. Once again, if you would like to make any questions, click on the raise hands button or in the chat box. There is no further questions, so I end the Q&A session. We would like to give the floor to Mr. Romanini to make the final comments.
Once again, good morning. What we can say in a very clear way, agri, is basically, I am working with that for 30 years, is a market that has a very intensive dynamic, but it is a market that is really making our country to have a position that is more comfortable. Agri is going to grow, Vittia is going to grow, and the companies that are in the sector that are working in a way that is correct, existing well in the market. And we know that some problems that we could have are something that's natural. But we cannot do in our company, Vittia.
It's a committed company with the investor. It's a company that would like to deliver performance, and we are going to have problems, but we are going to solve that, and we are going to have a great history. I'm in a position of tranquility with this year of 2023. That's what I like to say to you. Thank you very much.
So with this video conference is closed. We are available to answer further question. Thank you all for your participation, and have a good day