Good morning, everyone. As every quarter, we're in this webinar communication to analyze during this time and the results during this first quarter, sorry. As in all events, we will have a recording of this event so that you can check it out in our website. In case you have any concerns or questions, you can write it down as this webinar is being developed in the chat box that is available for this purpose. We'll have simultaneous interpretation into English as usual, and this time will be with Miquel Sans, the Director, Financial Director, Aguas Andinas, and the Management Control Manager. Good morning, Miquel. You have the floor.
Thank you for being once again with us this morning.
Before I start with the quarterly earnings statement, I would like to start with some aspects providing a context. From the operational point of view, I wanted to highlight two points. On one hand, we have a very good level at El Yeso Dam, with a very good level of the dam, over 90% at the closure of the semester. I would like to underscore that in the first semester, we didn't have major problems, although the blackouts translating into some problems, we see the impacts of all the services of our customers.
Secondly, from the financial point of view, at the end of January, we realized a window in the market in order to issue our refinancing with a local bond of 4 million UF, as we explained in the quarterly earnings statement in December to March.
In the same quarter, we have amortized a major part of our debt, which matured during this time, and we have 1/3 3 of liabilities for the rest of the year. From the chronological point of view, later in April, we did the shareholders board meeting. On one hand, we approved unanimously the distribution of 70% of the profits in 2024 to reinvest the 30% remaining to create investments. We also fixed the rating for our securities.
We also approved the incorporation of Fitch as the third rating locally that already issued the rating with AA as our credit rating. This same meeting, we also approved the new composition of the Board of Directors. We followed with the changes, and it was announced at the end of April.
In May, José Sáez in the General Management of Aguas Andinas, after Mr. Tugues, who was for two years as general manager, and he's assuming new responsibilities. The other, Rachel Bernardin de Nola, who had been working in the direction, he's taking also over the, all corporate issues. I will give now the floor to José Sáez to address a few words. Sorry, he is not activating his audio. We can't hear him.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this meeting, where we'll review the management of this company during the first quarter in 2025. It's a pride to be with you as the General Manager, that I assumed in the first days of May, after fulfilling different positions in, well, recently as the strategic manager of corporate issues.
This is a new opportunity to render my experience available with over 30 years of experience in this activity. As you may remember, as of the end of 1990 and with the PPP, we have developed a series of actions for the development of the city, and we developed the plan of sanitation for the city free of wastewaters. We have developed different phases of the resilience plan that went from three to 77 hours of autonomy in the city.
We have new challenges, but they all show that strategy that has been validated by the authority, considering a set of concrete solutions since 2022. We have also the expertise and the backup of Veolia, the controlling group.
The results that we're going to review today affirm the soundness of our economic model and the sustainability of services that are provided to over eight million people during this period of time. We would like to underscore the excellent welcome that our return to the local debt market had with issuing bonds with a period of time for the market. We're going to review in detail the economic performance in the first quarter in 2025. I would like to leave the floor to Cristian Torres. I wish you a very fruitful session today.
Thank you, José. Good morning.
Good morning, everyone. Once again, it's a great pleasure to be with you to share this presentation of the earning statement at the closure of this period of time. As Miquel said at the beginning, we didn't have any operational contingency, and if any, we were able to handle that as a result of all the resilience that we have for sanitation in Santiago.
It is important to highlight that at the end of the first quarter, the increase of the operational result in terms of EBITDA has an increased or a constant increase, and today is by 4.1%. And if we normalize these results and reducing the effect of the leap year day that we had last year, that would be 5.8%.
It is important to highlight this because the first thing that we are going to underscore are the consumption rates. During the first quarter, consumption rates had an evolution that is positive and increasing by 0.5%. Now, if we had isolated the effect of the leap year day last year, it would be 1.5% increase. The summertime weather terms had higher temperatures in the month of February, 2 centigrade degrees low in the month of March, and therefore, the consumption rate shows this evolution.
In terms of growth, the regulated sector of the sanitation income, it is important to highlight the rate element. That is the major lever for our...
First of all, we have to pay the polinomios, and the last one has been for September last year that was built, and in the case of Aguas Andinas, it resulted in an increase of 3.2%. As of March this year, we see the effects and the results of the eighth rate period or process. In this opportunity, we should highlight two effects. The first one related to the increase of the base rate of 3%, and additionally to that, an indexation of polinomios of 2.6%. As a third element that explains this growth in the sanitation services, we have the overconsumption.
The overconsumption are all the consumptions that are measured in the peak period of time, in summertime, and then this increased by 5.5% as compared to last year.
These three elements as a whole explain the decrease of this income in 3%. When we talk about the non-sanitary income, we see that there is a decrease of a little over CLP 2.8 million due to fundamentally a number of non-recurring effects, one-offs, that were recorded by March last year. The first one is related to the return of the insurance. If you remember last year, we mentioned that we have this return or reimburse of the reimbursement of insurance we had to deal with in the year 2023.
The other non-recurring effect is related to engineering services that first quarter last year. We ended up invoicing and acknowledging the income related to the engineering work of Santiago Metro Line 7, which is what we were managing throughout 2023 and part of 2024.
These two elements are the main ones that explain the decrease of the non-sanitary income, but the sanitation income. This 4.1% is still leveraged by the sanitation indexes, mainly the rates. Observing the recovery of consumption, we have a normalization of the non-sanitation revenues. If we check the costs, they grew 4.5%, and one of the main effects that is explained by the cost structure of the company are the ones related to the evolution of inflation and CPI and less about the exchange rate.
75% of the cost structure of the company is related directly or indirectly to inflation and approximately, 12% to the exchange rate of the dollar. This is explaining the CLP 3 billion of the increase in costs.
Now, at operational level, power has been a relevant element that means the real cost increase. Fundamentally, given the rate of regulated power, as of last year, for the first time in July and then in October and a third instance from January this year, there was a trigger of the frozen regulated rate. Explaining fundamentally the higher cost that we have in this area. Another important element that stands out in terms of management cost, we have to mention two.
One is related to mining patents. Because of our regulation, from the beginning of this year, there's an increase of costs due to the payment of these patents. As a company, we have to have mining patent concessions. All those areas that are surrounding our operational facilities.
This is how we are protecting third parties to generate works that are going to be able to interfere in our activity, and we're talking about the underground sources for drinking water. The second element that has had an important or additional impact are municipal permits. As a company, we have to go through many activities in the public roads, fundamentally our networks and the different municipalities that are part of the metropolitan region are generating management costs so that we can go ahead with these works.
Just to end, the explanation of costs has a positive element that was ratified in the past period of time, where all of the positive evolution of our debt related to the commercial management done by the company with the debts of the different customers in the different areas, which has allowed our level of debt is.
If compared with 2024, and if we remember in COVID, this was a 4.8%, being a very, very good element as we are having the debt cost prior to the pandemic. We have almost CLP 700 million in different areas in the company and management of procurement and well activities, and thus be able to reduce as well the cost of the territory, the property taxes. This is all explaining the evolution of costs. As mentioned earlier, they are both explaining the evolution and the sustained growth of the EBITDA by the end of the first quarter.
If we're talking about non-operational results, there are two elements that stand out. The first one is the financial result, and as you know, this is very influenced by the variation of the USD as it is related to this element.
Meaning that the currency correction in the debt has an impact of almost CLP 7.6 million in the first quarter, being the main factor explaining the differences of the earnings statement. As mentioned in the first quarter, there were financial operations to restructure our debt and including the local bonds and amortizing the bank loans that had an interest rate that was quite low. Lastly, the financial revenue related to this bond emission, we had higher surplus from treasury.
Given the management activities and investments in the money market explain this higher financial income of CLP 555 million. Just to end with this area, in other results, we see a decrease of CLP 3.7 million, explained mainly due to last year having sold an area of some land.
These are not recurring elements, but it is within the management activities of the company to sell certain assets, the ones that are nowadays not being used at operational level. Last year was one of the operations that we carried out. It is important to highlight that we do not have anything for this year, any additional sales of these type of assets.
The evolution of the non-operational results was influenced by the financial statement explained how we go through positive operations to this net profit by the end of this activity of almost CLP 51 billion, representing an evolution that is a decrease of 7.3% in this period. Now, if we see the cash flow, there are many different important aspects that stand out. The first one, the operational cash flow in terms of income collection.
It is improving the bad debt, which has a counterpart in the cash flow, mainly explaining a higher operational cash flow throughout this period of time. Additionally, in terms of taxes, we have a lower property tax paid because the provisional payments that are on a monthly basis, known in Spanish for PPMs, were lower than last year. In terms of the paid CapEx or the investment that has been paid, these flows are well influenced by the period of time in which the projects are carried out.
It is important to express that this is not linear, and it is depending on the type of projects that are carried out and the period of time in which this is done.
The effect in the first quarter 2024 is explained due to this aspect where there were a number of projects that were finally closed by the end of 2023 and which payment was done by the end of the first quarter 2024. All this explains that the free cash flow closed the period with almost CLP 25 million of cash flow that is at operational level.
We have two effects that were mentioned already, which is the sale of the land in 2024, and in 2025 we have nothing yet to be dealing with. Something else important is the dividend payment. You know that the provisional dividend payment was done in January. Explaining the evolution of the cash flow in the period, it is positive CLP 25 billion to a free cash flow of almost CLP -14 billion. This is the cash flow.
If we see in the next slide and we place it in the context of the net debt, it is maintained stable with a composition, as you can see in the graph to your left at the top. We still have a composition of banks at national and international level with a lower level of 7.7%. Something that is so important in this area is the promissory notes of around 11%-12%. What is relevant in our corporate strategy is 32% of our debt has the characteristic of being green and social debt.
If we diversify the debt in terms of currency, 32% nowadays is in USD and it already incorporates the international bonds, either the Swiss francs, the Japanese yen, or the Australian dollar. The typology in terms of the interest rates is the fixed rate.
Almost 90% of our debt is fixed rate, meaning that we can minimize the risks should there be any changes in the market. The cash position of the company throughout the first quarter evolved to CLP 108 billion, CLP 182 billion, as mentioned earlier, and it was also highlighted by Miquel and José. We have the local bonds of 4 million UF and USD and the prepayment of the bank loans, explaining the treasury by the end of the quarter.
And it is also explained by the monetary correction, as mentioned earlier, and the evolution of the cash flow of the period of time that was already explained in the previous slide of almost CLP 14 million . By the end of the first quarter, we have a financial net debt of CLP 1.256 billion.
If you allow me, I will drink some water to be able to continue. Thank you. Our investment plan is a main aspect of our strategy. Carrying out works that allow to guarantee the sustainability of the job with a vision not only on the short term or perspective to the short term, but also long term. The resilience is important to be able to approach climate changes, change issues, and it is fundamental to express why we went through a very quiet summertime. There are many turbidity events that are not seen by citizens, thanks to the strength of our installations or facilities.
In terms of the investments of the first quarter out of the CLP 35 billion, an essential element has been the renewal of the network. We have 14,000 km of network and drinking water, and very similar for the sewage system.
The reinforcement of the network is still a relevant aspect of what was done by the company, and it is going together with the commitment that was signed with the regulator in terms of projects. With these different rates, we are seeing different activities where we are seeing the deodorization in La Farfana, a project that is already carried out, and we hope we can still, by the end of this year, be able to end it and start working.
The other important element to underscore in terms of the efforts that have been for the investment is to develop our water treatment plants for the wastewater. That we have continuous efforts in this regard, working in the networks and also improving the measuring of consumption for the customers. This is an essential part of what we're doing as a company. All of this can be represented here in our economic and financial indicators at the closing of this period of time, which reflects our sound financial position.
In terms of the EV/EBITDA by May 13, the indicator is 9.86, and I would like to highlight that the ROCE and leverage reflect the economic value that our financial result has for the water rights and the land properties.
In terms of the net debt and EBITDA ratio, we have this ratio of 3.8, which is related to our projections and strategies. This allows to keep our credit risk rating. This allows to keep these local ratings at AA+. At the beginning of this week, it has been ratified, the classification by keeping it the AA+ with a stable outlook. This is additional to what we had as a rating with S&P.
Regarding the financial strategy, we should also highlight that as part of our business strategy, we have the management in terms of sustainability. In here, you can see different logos showing that we have obtained the different seals. I would like to stop on the Dow Jones Sustainability.
For the third year in a row, Aguas Andinas was in this Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and for the first time at MILA, with the countries including Mexico, Colombia, and Chile. In order to have a higher standard, this is part of the strategy by the company, and the acquisition of these seals is part of the work that the company has done through years. These are assessments that are done by external companies and that are very rigorous in terms of the validation of the documentation reviews.
This gives us the strength to consolidate our financial strategy together with the sustainability issues. We will continue to work on this for the rest of this year and for the next coming future.
As a summary and to conclude my presentation, we have this first quarter of the year that is consolidating the operational growth, the EBITDA, together with the financial position that is stable, ratified by our credit rating, ratings and sustainability issues. I will give the floor now to Denise for the next part that is the Q&A session.
We have already received some questions through this chat box. You can write them down on this chat box that is available. The first question is, "I understand that you are doing a bidding process for sustainable energy between February and April. Could you share the details for the quantity of energy that is involved as of when, and which would be the contribution for the regulated sector after this bidding process?" And Miquel Sans will answer this question.
Concerning the bidding process for the energy, it's still underway. We have already done with a number of kW/H . In terms of exposure as a regulated client, we should be under 20% with this new bidding process. In the new period of this new contract, there are different options for financing, and they will be based on the options we'll consider for this new contract.
I would like to share another question with you concerning the rating or rates decree corresponding the review of the rates for 2025 to 2030.
Well, this has been under review at the Ministry of Economy, and today it was submitted for revision to the Comptroller's Office. To answer this, there is no specific deadline for this complete review.
Anyways, we are in these normal deadlines for the decree of the tariffs or rates process. In the next months, this should be published. Thank you.
The next question is for Cristian Torres and is in connection with the benefits for the employees that went up by 6% here. Can you give further details regarding the additional staffing relating to this, and if we expect to have more in the same line?
Well, in here we have many combined effects that we should underscore on why this item is going up or higher than the indexation. We should consider also the non-sanitation activities, which are business lines that are very intensive in the use of staff. For example, when we had the maintenance of plant EcoRiles, which are the industrial waste management plants.
There is another, like the 40-Hour Law of work. With the structure of shifts that we have in the company, we need to include some adjustments to comply with it. Thirdly, by anticipating the challenges that we have and some commitments associated to that, we have the program of alternative supply. As Miquel was saying, we have to prepare the company in order to face the higher number of incidents that we have, including turbidity and those events. These are three fundamental elements that are explaining why we have this increase over the inflation rate.
The next question is for Miquel. It's concerning the maximum level of indebtedness that we have or debt that we have and how we expect to close this year. Thank you.
It is in a certain way. In the presentation, we show the ambition we have as a company to be below 3.5x the EBITDA at the end of 2030, without going over or exceeding 3x or 8.5 points. And this is the objective that we pursue as a company.
The next question is for Cristian Torres. Concerning the volumes, we observed that there has been an adjusted growth around 1%. What would be expected for the next coming quarters? Because if we consider the climate and the other indices has been lower. In terms of costs, they wonder what has been the value for the real estate, the territory tax reduction, and if we can give some figures related to that.
First, concerning the volumes and the consumption in April and May, we see that this is quite in line with the consumption last year. It is important to highlight that there is a seasonality characteristics, and sometimes this is related to the weather conditions. In April, we had a colder month. Fall is already installing very quickly, and in May we see that there is a normalization that is not quite different to the pattern last year, but also during the first quarter of this year. Up to date, we can say that we don't expect to have very different news.
Concerning the costs now and the management that we are undertaking for the tax, the property taxes, you know that this takes time. You know that the Internal Revenue Service are doing the assessment, and we are seeing these one by one.
We are reviewing each one of the properties, and we are evaluating if the arguments that are given are reasonable or not. Based on that, we are presenting a record, and we have seen the acceptance by the IRS to our arguments, and they are reviewing in some cases and adjusting the increase of the property taxes. Last year we had an important increase, and for this year we envisage also some evolutions. If we can speak of the magnitudes, it's around CLP 600 million or CLP 700 million this year.
Thank you, Cristian. The next question is for Miquel concerning the CapEx. The figure that has been earned is around CLP 35 billion. We see that, however, we have this piece of information during this year, we are going to have something around CLP 200 billion or CLP 250 billion annually as CapEx.
We consider that till 2030 we'll have this average yearly in this fork that you were mentioning, this window. We understand that at the closing of March, we're in line with what we expected for that bracket of time. All years we have a ramp up at the beginning of the year with a lower execution of the CapEx, and therefore the figure will depend on how these different milestones evolve. We estimate something lower than this bracket of CapEx for this present year. Thank you.
There is another question concerning the rate-fixing periods. Which is the guidance we expect for this period of time from 2025 and 2030 in terms of income and profits?
For the rating process, we expect that it can go up to 12% at the end of the period of income growth with the projects and the base rates without the indexations taking into account. That is the most important part of the income and the volumes that we consider will experience a growth reasonably in the next coming years based on the growth.
As Cristian said, what is happening in the first quarter in April, the methodology has something to show, but we see the trend in a positive manner as far as the volumes are concerned. Thank you.
The next question is for Cristian concerning the consumptions. Can you comment something about the behavior of April and May this year?
Unless I am wrong, I think that we already answered this question before.
As Miquel said, we have to take into account the weather conditions, and we are not experiencing something different to what we see at the end of March and compared to last year. We don't need to see this on a monthly basis, but quarterly, because there is a seasonality effect in the measuring and billing of the consumptions.
Thank you, Cristian. Thank you, Miquel. We see that there are no further questions. I would like to remind you that all this conference will be available in our website in English and Spanish. Thank you very much for your participation. If you have any additional concern, do not hesitate to get in touch with our section of investors. Good afternoon, everyone.