Good morning, and welcome to Atento's 2021 fourth quarter and full year results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. If you are at your computer, please use the Submit a Question box in your webcast viewer. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Hernan van Waveren, Investor Relations Director for Atento. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone to our fiscal fourth quarter 2021 earnings call to discuss Atento's financial and operating results. Here with us for today's call are Carlos López-Abadía, Atento's Chief Executive Officer, and José Azevedo, Chief Financial Officer. Following their review of Atento's financial and operating results, we will open the call for your questions. Before proceeding, please note that certain comments made in this call will contain financial information that has been presented and prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards. In addition, this call may contain information that constitutes forward-looking statements, which are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Certain results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.
We encourage you to review our publicly available disclosure documents filed with the relevant securities regulators, and we invite you to read the complete disclosure included here in the second slide of our earnings call presentation. Our public filings and earnings presentation can be found at investors.atento.com. Please be advised that unless noted otherwise, all growth rates are on year-over-year and constant currency basis. I will now turn the call over to Carlos.
Thank you, Hernan, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to discuss with you the results of 2021 and our perspectives for 2022. Our 2021 results show continued improvement of our recurring operations when excluding the one-off cyber event that impacted our results significantly and beyond our initial estimates. As a result, we have made significant investments in our cyber preparedness, both from a technology and operational perspectives. We expect to resume in 2022 the improvements to our business and results. The continued improvements showed in the first three quarters and in the fourth quarter on a recurring basis give us the confidence that we're on the right track to continue to improve Atento.
On a recurring basis, we have grown our revenue 7.9% and EBITDA by 23.7%, while expanding operations in key markets and sectors with a strong sales growth and record customer satisfaction. We increased sales by 20% with the vast majority of those sales coming from strategic and high growth sectors such as technology, fintech, e-commerce, healthcare, while expanding relationships with traditional clients. A very important example of the latter is Telefónica. We completed the extension of the MSA to cover the totality of our geographic footprint with them. It is my belief that as important as MSA are, we need to earn the business of our clients every single day. In that spirit, we have expanded our relationship with Telefónica in Spain, with 800 workstations with a contract that extends beyond the MSA.
We continue to grow our U.S. and EMEA business, taking the hard currency share of our EBITDA to 26%. As a result of growth and margin expansion in both markets, the U.S. has grown 34%, reaching a 16.6% EBITDA margin, while EMEA has reached a 14.2% EBITDA margin. We have opened two nearshore centers in the U.S., one of them co-branded with our customer, GameStop. These are important results for us, not only because of the inherent attractiveness of the market, but also because it allows us to slowly but surely reduce our foreign exchange exposure. On the topic of FX, I need to point out that we are working with our bankers to address the financial costs of our foreign exchange exposure. Expect some news from us on this front. We continue to drive efficiencies across our organization.
While we believe in the importance of our regional organization, which enables us to stay close to our clients, we continue to drive the implementation of shared service centers and global operating models. We expect to start delivering this year significant efficiencies, lowering our cost structure while providing better, more consistent service quality to our customers. We continue to innovate and expand our portfolio of next generation solutions. We're emphasizing partnerships not only as technology sources, but also as go-to-market partners. We have started a new partner channel organization in the U.S. that we expect to materially contribute to our growth in 2022, rolling it out to the rest of the world in the second half of the year. I would be remiss if I do not comment on our cyber plans, given our recent experience.
Making virtual out of necessity, we have modified our cyber strategy, adding the lessons learned. It includes three components, prevention, protection, and recovery. Particularly in the area of recovery, we are establishing joint protocols with our customers to accelerate service restoration in the event of future cyber attacks. This is something we have learned to be of paramount importance to address the cyber risk. Last but not least, we keep on delivering on our ESG commitments. We have reduced Scope 1 emissions by 16%, continue to be a leader in the diversity and inclusion, and have achieved a new record in customer NPS, while also improving employee satisfaction. Finally, our outlook for 2022.
We see some of the impact from the cyber attack affecting us in Q1 results, but we also see an acceleration of results and a resumption of our transformation trajectory thereafter, thus improving on our 2021 recurring EBITDA and revenue numbers. José will now review our results with you in more detail, and then we'll take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Carlos, and good day everyone. I will begin with a brief overview of our 2021 financial results on slide 14. We want to make clear that the underlying performance of our business remains strong, and that our growth strategy continues gaining traction. I will focus on the recurring numbers, which exclude the fourth quarter impacts of the cyber attack that resulted in approximately $35 million of lost revenue. This and the $7 million of costs related to the attack had a $42 million impact on our EBITDA. Please turn to slide 14. Our revenue grew nearly 8% to $1.5 billion at year-end, with recurring EBITDA increasing a strong 24%. That's due to our improving operating leverage. Also in line with the guidance was recurring margin of nearly 13%.
Recurring operating cash flow was $21.1 billion, which I will break down in a moment. Lastly, on this slide, our reported results led to negative equity of $10 million. However, it's important to note that this consists of $85 million of non-cash items, which I will explain later in my presentation. Slide 15 shows the cyber attacks impacts on revenue, EBITDA, as well as operating cash flow. The lost revenue and costs stemming from the attack had a $42 million EBITDA impact, putting recurring EBITDA at $192 million. Its impact on operating cash flow was $25 million or -$4 million for 2021. On a recurring basis, operating cash flow was + $21.1 million, as shown on the slide. In the bottom half of Slide 16, we give a geographic breakdown of our recurring annual results.
As you can see in the upper left of the slide, Telefónica revenue drove more of our top line than in the past. That was due to 23% growth in Telefónica revenue in Brazil, as we captured a great share of wallet and we delivered more high value next generation services to these key clients. At the same time, growth in multi-sector sales slowed to 1% in Brazil, as we maintained discipline with contracts we are signing. We're continuing to emphasize margin, not growth. That is reflected in Brazil's EBITDA, which increases 26% in 2021, while the margin expanded 240 basis points to 15.4%. In the Americas, multi-sector business drove more of our top line, consistent with our strategy. Sales in this category grew 14%, while Telefónica revenue increased at 7%.
In the Americas increased at 5.5%, with the margin up slightly to 9.4%. The margin was constrained by increased variable operating costs due to high absenteeism rates, mainly in Argentina and Peru. For the year, EMEA was a healthy contributor to our performance, with EBITDA increasing 73% and the margin expanding 410 basis points to 10.6%, a level we expect to maintain going forward. Slide 17 makes clear the impact of cyber attack on our reported results for 2021. As you can see, Brazil revenue was less, with our multi-sector business being hit the hardest, with sales down 3%. Telefónica sales, on the other hand, rose 10% for the year. The lost revenue in Brazil, coupled with the costs we incurred to deal with the attack, resulted in a 31% decrease in EBITDA.
Brazil's margin contracted 410 basis points to just under 9%. Slide 18 gives a more focused and objective view of our recurring performance in Brazil in the fourth quarter, where the cyber attack occurred. Brazil revenue grew 2%, with Telefónica sales increasing 11.5%. Recurring EBITDA increased 8.4%, with Brazil's margin expanding nearly 100 basis points to 19.6%. Slide 19, which has our reported results, shows the impact the cyber attack had on our Brazilian business. Fourth quarter sales decreased 22% in Brazil, with multi-sector and Telefónica revenue decreasing 17% and 39% respectively. The loss of revenue, as well as the cyber costs, led to a 148% decrease in Brazil's EBITDA and a 380 basis point contraction in its margin.
Revenue increased 7.5%, while the margin contracted 100 basis points due to the higher absenteeism rates that I noted earlier. EMEA sales decreased nearly 9% in the quarter, although the margin expanded a strong 200 basis points, 13% on cost-cutting and improved sales margins. On slide 20, we also show 2021 free cash flow on a recurring basis, which was $10.5 million. In addition to the $25 million impact of the cyber attack, there were other one-offs last year. This included the $20 million in payroll-related taxes that had been postponed in the prior year, other pandemic relief programs as well as the costs that we incurred when refinancing our debt in early 2021. This includes $10 million in insurance costs and an $11 million premium to bondholders.
Slide 21, we bridge EBITDA free cash flow, the biggest factors being changes in working capital of $42.3 million, mainly the higher costs and the tax payments. CapEx of $51 million and the net financial expenses of $46 million. CapEx was much higher in 2021, as we had postponed cash CapEx in the prior year due to the pandemic. The increase also reflects the Microsoft licenses that we previously treat as leases from an accounting perspective. Let's turn to Slide 22. Now let's look at leverage on a recurring basis. That was 2.9x EBITDA, up slightly both sequentially and year-over-year. On the basis leverage was within our guidance range of 2.5x-3 x. On a reported basis, it was 3.9 x.
We finished the year with a healthy cash position of $129 million, which includes $79 million in existing revolvers, of which we have drawn $56 million. As you can see on the bottom of this slide, our maturity profile is a comfortable one following the refinancing of the bond last year. Lastly, on debt, as we continue to generate more hard currency revenues, we are building in a natural hedge against our dollar-denominated debt. On slide 23, we bridge 2020 and 2021 equity. FX items were the biggest equity factor, which we have broken down in the box on this slide. Of the $134 million in financial items, $21 million was one-off items related to our debt refinancing. $71 million consists of recurring annual financial costs and $42 million in accounting for changes in the fair value of derivatives.
As you can see in the bridge, there was also $43 million of balance sheet and P&L conversion. To summarize, there were $85 million of non-cash items that affected our 2021 equity. That concludes my review of our results. We are now happy to take your questions. Operator, please open the call.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. If you're at your computer, please use the Submit a Question box in your webcast viewer. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Hernan van Waveren for the questions received via webcast.
Thank you, operator. We have a question from our webcast. First, can you reconcile the recurring EBITDA to the actual EBITDA from the quarter?
Mm.
Also provide some more detail on the expected residual impacts that are driving the reduction in guidance for 2022. Secondly, can you add any detail to recent press reports that your sponsors are considering selling the company? Thank you.
Okay. I always hate multi-part questions because I tend to forget, you know, the second part. Let me. The first one, I think it was reconcile. I think it's three parts. Reconcile the EBITDA, recurring EBITDA. Very simple. The only thing we don't have recurring EBITDA, we've taken out the impact of the cyber, 'cause it's such a big impact, it makes the comparison of numbers very difficult. As is our habit to do everything else, the good, the bad, the ugly, it's all in.
You know, things that come to mind is things like the lingering effects during 2021 of the pandemic that you know had in the order of $ 30 million-$ 35 million in the. We don't consider those, so we don't separate those as one-offs. If you think about it, just the only difference between, sorry, recurring and actual EBITDA is the cyber impact. The second part, I think it was, can you... Hernan, was the Q1.
Yes.
Yeah.
Could you reconcile between recurring EBITDA?
No, no. I got that. The second part. Fundamentally in Q1, first half of the year, we expect the following. As you can imagine, after we realize how we underestimated the impacts of the cyber at the beginning, we became much more cautious on our forecast going forward. We don't think there's gonna be any significant long-lasting effects, but we do expect some in Q1, potentially Q2. Fundamentally Q1, which is, we expect some, or at least we're forecasting that some customers that have very high dependence on us, you know, 80%, 90%, 100% in a particular line of business, that they would naturally diversify that with other providers.
That may or may not happen, but we are forecasting that and it's included and it's factored in our guidance. We do have some extraordinary expenses in Q1, specifically around all the things that we're doing on cyber. We got on to the improvement immediately, so a lot of those impacts happened during Q4. Still a few in Q1. I don't think we have much of those in Q2 other than what we consider business as usual. Again, all this is factored in the guidance. Q1 also we have had impact of Omicron.
You know, obviously, pandemic impact is always a bad thing, but on the good side, has been relatively low impact in terms of serious cases, much less than it used to be. From a financial perspective, I can tell you that the bulk of the impact was in January, decreasing rapidly in February. By the end of March, we're back to normal. We expect that to be you know, just a blip on Q1. We don't expect major impacts the rest of the year. I think there was a third part of the question, Hernan. I forgot the third part.
Carlos, could you expand a little bit on the current Bloomberg article that came out?
I don't know which one the reference is, but I think I remember that the third part of the question was about the acquisition, M&A. Guys, our policy is not to comment on market rumors. We're a public company. Of course, it's our obligation to look at, you know, different opportunities to maximize the value of the company. It's our policy not to comment on anything. Whether we're doing or not doing something, we're not gonna comment on that. When we have something to release or comment to the market, we will do that.
Thank you. Carlos, we have another question from our webcast. Can you please give us more color about the impact of the cyberattack and why the impact has been much bigger than initially expected?
Very well. One thing, as I mentioned in my remarks, there are a number of lessons learned. I always believe that, you know, if you don't learn, if you learn something, it's an investment. If not, it's an absolute loss. There's a number of things that we learned. One, on the positive, I think, I took the position that we want to be 100% transparent with our customers and our clients and put their safety, security and well-being first.
We were very transparent from day one. You know, you read the same articles and the same press that I do, and I don't mean this industry, but in general, that is not necessarily the common practice out there. We have followed that and will continue to follow that. As it turned out, as I think you mentioned, in previous calls, the number of servers affected were very small. Very, very small. We were confident of that within hours. One of the things that I learned, or things we learned, is that, although technically, things could be sound and the technology may have worked as anticipated, there is a lot that needs to happen when you work with human beings, you know?
One of the things I learned is different companies have different levels of structure protocols to deal with these situations. Although some companies, you know, we were working, we were back up and running with some customers in a couple of days, yeah, the vast majority of the companies, they wanted to persuade themselves that things were satisfactory from a risk technology perspective. Now, some companies had some very well-thought-through protocols, others did not.
We got into, in some cases, an exploratory process, which resulted in the return to service and the return to volumes, very importantly, because you could turn up, you know, service, but, you know, volumes may come through a different pace, at a completely different pace that we anticipated, and particularly on the basis of the conversations that we had very early on with our customers. Fundamentally, that was the most important point and our most important learning. As part of that, as we are updating, we have updated our cyber policy and approach. I apologize. We got all kind of echo here. Hopefully it's not for everybody else.
We have one very important part that we have included is working with our customers on the protocols to allow us to very rapidly, you know, get back to service when we are, as we were, certain that there was no security risk.
Thank you, Carlos. Now we'll open the microphone for Vincent Colicchio from Barrington Research. Vincent?
Yes. Good morning, Carlos.
Hi, Vincent.
What portion of the revenue that was lost in Q4 are you anticipating will return?
We know, as I mentioned, I think my previous question, the answer to my previous question, now we know, you know, with pretty good certainty what has returned. We have built into the Q1, Q2, and the full year some anticipation that, you know, some volume reduction in those cases where we see customers having a very high dependence on us. In terms of the volume returning, the vast majority of it has returned back to normal.
If I'm understanding you correctly, for Q1 in Brazil, most of the volume has returned and should be modeled into our expectations.
It has. There's some, not completely, but the vast majority has returned. We've made allowance also for some potential down the road impact. Again, as I said, in the cases where, you know, customers have a high dependency on us, we'd rather, based on recent experience, be, you know, prudent in this.
Can you give us an update on your strategies around the world in addressing wage inflation? I know in Brazil, a lot of your contracts have you know can be adjusted for wage inflation. I assume in the Americas as well. Just give us an update overall.
Sure. The higher inflation is not a good thing for us, particularly in Latin America. U.S., Europe, we're having unusually high wage inflation. We have so far a good ability to pass through that on prices. Latin America, as you know, the market is a bit more complicated. Although we do have the ability in our contracts to pass through the inflation increase that happens through the year. Typically, that's one of the reasons we have very high seasonality, Q1 being our worst quarter and Q4 being significantly better than, I mean, the others. You can see a very clear trend through the year.
Part of the reason that we are cautious about the guidance we're giving you for the first half of the year is that we have higher impact of inflation, although we will pass through it through the year. The first few months are where we are mostly impacted by inflation. Other than the traditional markets such as Brazil, Argentina, of course, the high inflation in the places where typically we don't have it is U.S. and Europe. We don't anticipate a big impact on that.
The strong growth in the U.S. market, is that largely from existing clients or is it a combination of existing and new clients?
It's a combination. I'm happy to tell you that, as you know, it's a market we just have started developing the last couple of years. I'm happy to tell you that customers that we have been acquiring are growing very fast with us. We have a good component of tailwind of the customers in the right industries and the right customers that, you know, increase their volumes with us. We continue to be very aggressive in terms of acquiring new customers. We have very active pipeline and we expect to continue to grow both from existing customers and the new customers that we have.
Okay. Thank you for answering my questions.
No, thank you, Vincent.
We have a question from our webcast. Could you expand on your financial cost, specifically your current cost of capital?
Yeah. Let me make a couple of comments, and I'll pass it on to José to give you a much better answer. In terms of our financing cost, we had a lot of one-off costs associated with the reissues of the bond. Also some of the instruments that we have to put in place, it made a ton of sense in the beginning of last year, and particularly as we were putting these things in place in December 2020 or late 2020. The world has changed quite a bit, you know, from late 2020 to today. Some of the things, including the interest rate, foreign exchange position, et cetera, have changed.
What made sense at that time makes much less sense right now, and we are working to restructure all of that. But José has probably much better answer for you.
Thank you, Carlos. No, in fact, our financial costs, I can give you a very quick some information about it. What changes was first the interest rates from the bond, the previous bond and the new one, that increased our interest and our cost, of course. It means that's worth per year $40 million. Yeah. We pay always $20 million in February and $20 million in August. The hedge in the first year give us a positive effect in terms of cash, not in MTM, but the market to market, but in terms of cash was a positive effect. We have around $6 million coming from the existing revolvers that we use during the year.
Extra costs, one-off costs that affects the financial, is basically the issuance of the new bonds, the cost that we have is around $10 million, plus the premium that we have paid for the bondholders, around $11 million.
Thank you. We have another question from our webcast. When do you expect to finalize the Telefónica MSA?
Mm-hmm.
What is your level of confidence in bringing it to a successful conclusion?
I think to repeat on my prepared remarks, we did complete the MSA, just as for those of you perhaps are less familiar with the agreement, we had extended the Brazil piece and the Spain piece, and we have concluded the rest of the footprint before the end of the year. Now we have extended the whole footprint. More important than the MSA itself for us, as I mentioned in my remarks, I do tell everyone in my team that MSAs are great, but at the end of the day, we have to earn the business that we have with every customer every day.
As proof of that, you know, I can tell you that our most important contract with Telefónica extend way beyond the MSA. The most important contracts in Brazil and now in Spain, they extend to the end of 2025. And that again is not required by the MSA, but you know, it's something that I feel very proud of because that's the business that we earn and the confidence that our customers place on us.
Thank you.
Thank you. We do have a question. A phone question next is from Ryan O'Hagan with EIP. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the question and the presentation. Super helpful. I know you guys have spent quite a bit of time on the cyber attack already. I just had a couple of follow-ups. Can you qualify if there's been any kind of impact on the goodwill of customer relationships based on what's happened? I know you guys have some pretty big contracts. I'm just wondering with the downtime and some of the comments you made about the dependence on you guys. Has that been impacted or could you give us maybe any more color on that and how you expect that to kind of drip through earnings this year? One thing that was mentioned, I think on the 3Q call, was the insurance cover for some of the kind of costs associated with the cyber attack.
It'd be helpful if you could kind of expand on that. Finally, the revenue guidance that you've given for the year, I presume that's on the actual number for FY 2021 rather than the kind of expected number, ex-cyber attack.
Okay. Again, somebody's gonna have to remind me the different parts. Let me start with the last first. The guidance is based on the recurring, meaning, you know, ex-cyberattack it's we are forecasting to do better in 2022 than we would have done in 2021 without the cyberattack. The number will be much higher in terms of increases, what have you, ex- you know, if we give you the numbers based on the actual. My objective, my ambition is always to do better. Whenever we have a bump on the road, whether it is a cyberattack or a pandemic, is to get back to the overall multi-year trend that this company is demonstrating, and we will continue to demonstrate that we deliver.
That was the third part. You asked, I think the first part was something about the cyber-
The first one was just on the goodwill.
Yeah.
Yeah, the relationships that have been kind of impacted.
Yeah. Look, you know, a cyberattack or a situation like this is never a great situation for us or our customers. Let me start with that. Having said that, in terms of our long-term relationship with customers and the way I believe we have handled, it's demonstrating already and will continue to demonstrate that it is a positive. Not everyone is completely transparent with these things. I think you'll find that, and I'm not talking about our industry, I'm talking in general. Just all you can do is just read the papers. Most of the time people say, "Well, I'm having a technical difficulty.
I will get back to you in a few hours. There may or may not be disclosure on the attack, depending on the circumstances. We can read that constantly on the paper. We took a different tack. We took the tack that it's our relationship with our customers, the well-being of our customers, our brand, and the long-term trust on we are here to help them, protect them, and that we can be a partner that is completely transparent with them is of paramount importance. Now, that may have a cost, as it did in the short term, but I believe that in terms of the relationship, the brand, what we stand for, it's going to be a positive in the long term.
I'm not talking about in the long term, you know, 10 years from now, but we're already seeing it with many customers. Having said that, let me be clear, you know, this has not been a positive event for us or for our customers. Let me be crystal clear on that. In terms of the impact with the relationship, I'm already seeing it and will continue to be a... I expect it to be a very important long-term positive.
Got it. I suppose the last question I had was just around the insurance cover for the lost earnings. Is that something you guys expect to be a meaningful contributor this year?
I expect to collect it for sure. We actually, initially we thought it was possible to get it done in Q4. It wasn't, and part of the reason is everybody wanted. We run a complicated business in which, you know, to take a look at losses and all that, you have to take a look at volumes, invoices, etc. The assessors wanted to take a look at the results with the books closed. That's in the works. I expect to I don't anticipate a problem on that front. It will happen, you know, in the course of the year.
Sorry, could you confirm, you know, what kind of quantum you're talking about there? How much cash that's gonna equate to for the balance sheet or kind of loss of earnings?
We have $11 million of insurance that I would expect to collect.
Got it. Helpful. That's super helpful. One last question. I know you've kind of addressed it already, but obviously the minority investors have made a couple of submissions to the SEC and there was a rumor in Bloomberg about appointing bankers. Could you comment on the fact whether or not it's true that the bankers have been appointed for any purpose, be that run a sales process or look at further efficiency programs?
I tried to answer that question earlier. Let me do it again. It's the same answer as before, which is, you know, we don't comment on rumors, not now or as a matter of policy. As I said earlier, as a public company, or as a responsible company, we, you know, we look at any opportunity, any realistic opportunity to increase shareholder value. We do that as a matter of course. We do that as part of the business we run. We don't comment on what we're doing at any particular time, regarding that. When we have something to disclose, we'll do that. We're not doing that at this time.
Got it. No, completely understood. Thanks so much, and appreciate you taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question will be from Beltrán Palazuelo with DLTV. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, Carlos, José, Hernan. This is Beltrán. I have a couple of questions. First of all.
Hi, Beltrán.
Regarding working capital in 2021, of course, there was a problem with the cyberattack, but I don't know why, let's say, the drain in cash of working capital is high. Secondly, if you could give us more color. Of course, you were talking about wage inflation that will hurt the first half. But if you could give, let's say, more color, what is the ambition of margins of this company? Before it was 14%-15%, but it was more. Is it still more ambitious in, let's say, 15%-16% in maybe 2023? And then regarding the guidance 2022, it's. If you could give us, let's say, free cash flow, what is the free cash flow guidance?
Because at the end of the day, it's very important that in, let's say, the weak numbers on 2021, it's very good to see what is the ambition. Regarding the net debt, if you get, let's say, $ 1.6 billion in the currency [audio distortion] margins, it seems very cautious, the net debt to EBITDA. The two last questions, cost of the hedge. Could give us more detail? Regarding the results of 2020, it seems that you changed a couple of things in the EMEA, Americas, and Eliminations because they're not the same figures as you reported in 2020 when you see the EBITDA margin of Americas and EMEA. If you could give me more detail in those five things.
Okay. Beltrán, first of all, you know, it's great to hear your voice again. You have a ton of questions right there. I don't even remember them. Can I make a suggestion? If there's something you want me to address right now, I'm happy to do that. Can we set up a session with you to go through all your financial questions one by one?
Okay. Carlos, thank you for your answer, and thank you for the... Maybe just the two... It's good. What is the free cash flow generation guidance for 2022? Of course, there's inflation and, of course, there's a cyberattack, but it's very good to hear what is the ambition of free cash flow generation in 2022. Regarding margins, it seems like 14%-15% was going to be achieved, and suddenly you take 100 basis points. It's good that you reflect that at some point you will get to that target or even higher, or else.
Yeah.
No support from the financial margins.
Yeah. Let me tackle that, those two, and let's set up a proper session. José and I will be more than happy to. Particularly José, since you know, a lot of your questions, I think, are more in José's department. We'll be very happy to go through that in detail. On those two, particularly let me start with the margin targets. You know, we continue to be committed to the plan that we discussed with you guys three years ago. You know, as you know, we had a dip in 2020 because of the pandemic. We had a problem with the cyber. We'll have other problems through our lifetime. This is a complicated market.
We are committed to come back and continue the long-term trend. Let me be very clear. The expectation to get that, I think, 2021 has put us behind a few months. I would expect to get back to the targets that we discussed with you three years ago, probably in the first half of next year. I don't expect more than, you know, a few months of impact to that timeline.
My ambition is to exit 2022 with a very strong exit rate and demonstrate that, yes, you know, we got a problem with cyber in Q4 of 2021, but we are strong and continue to showing that trend beyond the number that you remember and beyond. Okay?
Okay. Carlos, thank you.
All right.
Thank you for the hard work for all the team, and thank you for your answer.
Thank you.
We have a question from our webcast. Carlos, what is the reasonable expectation for the percentage of hard currency EBITDA going forward? Your increase in hard currency EBITDA in 2021 was 26%, which might have been helped by the decline in Brazil EBITDA owing to the cyberattack. Could you expand there, please?
Sure. We continue to grow the percentage of our hard currency. It's part of our strategy and policy. We, as I mentioned a number of times to you guys, the I find that the U.S. market, European markets, not only they're very attractive per se and inherently, but also it helps this company, one of the challenges that we have, which is the FX exposure and fluctuation. We will continue as a target to increase our hard currency percentage. What do we expect for 2022? I expect something in the order of 30%.
We expect to continue growing the percentage, the fraction of hard currency in our cash and EBITDA.
Thank you, Carlos. We have one more question from our webcast. How are the results of ongoing negotiation with clients to adjust contract prices to inflation? Are they mostly completed? Could there still be pressure on guided margins for 2022 to Q2 coming from this front?
That front is fairly tractable. All the things, unfortunately, in the environment that we work, that's part of what we do, all right? It's our costs from that perspective are gonna be higher this year because the inflation is higher. The impact is fundamentally the first half. The way it works is every contract that we have signed in the last few years, and I think by now the majority, if not the totality of our contracts have the inflation across adjustment process. What tends to happen is that the wage inflation happens in at the beginning of the year.
In many countries this is driven by government or and/or unions, and it happens immediately. Then the adjustment on the prices of the existing contracts happens through the year, you know. We achieve very high rates of pass-through. I think and we expect to continue to be at the high end 80% +, for example, in Brazil. It's something we do every year, and it's factored in the higher inflation of the year. This year is factored in the guidance that we've given you.
Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, José, for your time. This concludes our call. Operator, please, you can finalize the call.
Thank you, sir. The conference has now concluded. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your phones at this time. Take care.