This webinar in order to review the results of the company during the first quarter of 2026. As our panelists, we will have Miquel Sans, CFO of the company, and also Cristian Torres, who is Management Control and Accounting Manager. In the last section, we will have Edson Landeros, who is the Planning Manager of the Planning and Engineering and Construction Department of Aguas Andinas. Today, we will talk about the results in general of the company in three chapters. The first chapter will be to review the financial and economic context, then in the second chapter, we will go into details about these results of the company during the first three months of the year. In the end, we will carry out an analysis on the climate projections and also talk about climate change in the strategy of the company.
This will be given by Edson Landeros. As usual, you may ask your questions by writing them in the chat, which is for this purpose. In the end of the event, as usual, we will be able to replay the event through the webpage of investor relations of Aguas Andinas. Thank you again, and I give the floor now to Miquel Sans for the first part.
Thank you, Denisse. Good morning. Thank you for being with us today in this review of results for the first three months, I go into details of the results. I would like to give some context about this. Let us talk about the conflict in Iran and the general uncertainty that this causes, and the parity that we have in the markets.
Today, we see that the stock market is dropping. We just wanted to give our point of view about the effects that we may have. On the one hand, we have the logistics part. Our products come from Europe and China, and from that side, we have not seen many effects. Given the interrelation of the international markets, we could have some indirect impacts. Today, we're not seeing them, but we are monitoring them continuously in order to anticipate any disruptions. Regarding the macroeconomic aspect on the financing area, today, we don't anticipate going into the market for the rest of the year. We don't see any impact for us. Regarding the U.S., we see an increased trend, more than 4% by the end of the year in the CPI.
Given that our debt is indexed to the U.S., this will have an impact on our profits. This month, given the evolution of the indices, as you might remember, we have an index and polynomial of three indicators, CPI, manufacturing, and imports. With a combination of these three factors, we index Aguas Andinas and 90% in regulated, you will be able to see this in the second quarter. Regarding the dollar Chilean peso exchange rate, we have an exchange rate for most of our exposure for the year. We are not then exposed to the evolution that we're seeing in the markets. On the third pillar, the OPEX, most of our contracts are long-term, medium and long-term.
We have pending contracts, and some of them are indexed to the CPI, to the fuel, and with indexings that have different periods, yearly, six months or quarterly. The impact should be gradual. We are protected by the polynomial, which also gathers all the evolutions happening in the market. Now, regarding the tariffs and indexing, this six months, we indexed it 1% more than was established in the tariff process. At the end of January, we had a rate associated to La Farfana, which was implemented in January, and then we could start acknowledging it in the rate. If we talk about hydrology, since Edson Landeros will talk about our vision in depth for this year, but in the end of March, it is over 80%. Today, it is around 70%, and we have had a summer with more rains than in previous summers.
As Cristian Torres will explain in the financial aspect, before going to the results, we need to remember that in the general shareholders board in April, we approved a distribution of 75% of the profits of 2025, and this dividend was paid on April 30th. Now I give you Cristian Torres so that he can go in-depth about the financial aspects of the first quarter. Cristian.
Thank you, Miquel Sans. Good morning, all. It is a pleasure to be with you once again to explain and to comment about the evolution of the first quarter of this year. We see, the results of the companies follow the same trend as we have seen in the quarter with stable and consolidated growth, both at the terms of revenues, EBITDA, and the net income.
First of all, when we see the evolution of revenues of 6.6%, where we go from CLP 197 million to CLP 210 million in the first quarter of this year, this is explained mainly by what Miquel said before, the rate impact as a result of the agreement of the eighth process, both for Aguas Andinas, Aguas Cordillera, and Aguas Manquehue. This is basically incorporated in the rates that are being applied gradually. We have the results of Aguas Andinas. This increase was applied gradually, 1% in December of last year, and the last 1% was in March of this year. To this, we add Aguas Cordillera, 12%. 10% was applied in middle part of last year, 1% in December, and 1% will be applied in May. Finally, Aguas Manquehue, 5%, and that was collected in June of last year.
Here we have the base rate already incorporated to the results of the last rate. We need to add the additional rate that is due to the water committed in this rate fixing. Also it has to do with La Farfana, it started in 27 January of this year, and also the alternative supply plans that have been in force since June of last year. In the area of consumption, it is important to say that during the first quarter of this year, they are basically the same as the volumes that were supplied in the first quarter of last year. There's no evolution in this case, even though the climate conditions have been a little different, as we will see in detail in the next slide.
To finish with the income, at the level of non-sanitation income, there is a positive evolution that is explained by four aspects. First, the non-sanitation branches. The non-regulated branch has had a dynamic activity, particularly in terms of logistics. We have had more activities regarding the client services and also the engineering services. Finally, the agreements and works that are carried out outside of military. We had the results during the first quarter. In summary, the revenues are increased in a stable and consolidated manner at a rate of 6.6%. To review EBITDA, we now go to the next slide, where we can see the composition of this growth of 7.5%. First, we had already anticipated the effect associated to the rates. When we talk about consumption, this is a neutralized factor that we already mentioned.
On the other hand, we have costs associated to sanitation services. We need to consider here that we have additional rates associated to this new scope of the service. For example, the alternative supply plan and the entry and operation of the deodorization module of La Farfana. We also have a positive EBITDA because of the margin of the non-sanitation that I mentioned, and also CLP 734 million positive because of the management of bad debt. In the first quarter, it was at 1.2% over the income versus 1.4% during the same period as last year. Regarding the organics and the positive growth of costs, we have the part that is associated to inflation as well as to the dollar exchange rate.
On the one hand, we have the effect of greater cost increases due to inflation of CLP 1.5 billion associated to the inflation during the period. On the other hand, we have the positive effect by the evolution of the exchange rate. When we compare quarter by quarter, there's an average of 8% less. Later, if we examine the cost or the evolution of the main costs in the company, we see the effect on the staffing, CLP 2 billion that are applied basically to four concepts. First of all, we have a regulatory effect. We have commented that new laws are in force related to the provision of funds and also the law for 40 working hours. That implies CLP 129 million. On the other hand, we have the effect of the actuary
A calculation for the long-term commitments that we have engaged in with the different bargaining agreements with the different unions in the company. We also have an increase of the staffing related to ensuring the standards of the service quality in the company and also related to the health insurance and also other lines of staffing. In general terms, this impinges on the line of staffing. We have CLP 235 million in the overheads of the company, including the chemical supplies and also the optimizations for the consumptions. As a result of the application of some initiatives that are targeted to upgrade the utilization of the chemical supplies in the Biofactorías, we have less water transfer and in electricity, we also have lower costs related to the effect of the price.
Although we had a higher consumption of energy because there is a greater consumption of the underground sources, it was offset by the lower prices. Next, we have the IT services, and here we have an increase of the cost related to the main licenses acquired by software used by the company. We have the cost efficiency in the first quarter of CLP 184 million that are leveraged in our programs of efficiency and also for the strategy plan allowing to capture different initiatives to these amounts. Finally, we have the costs related to the transitional effects of the pay patterns and contributions that will be normalized at the end of the financial year.
It is important to highlight concerning the evolution of the cost of 4.5% increase, 4.3% is accounted by the amount of revenues, 2.4% is related to regulation, 0.7% is related to the real increase of the cost during the same period of time. This is consolidating, therefore, the improving of the margin that we have observed in the last quarter, consolidating therefore the growth rate of the EBITDA of 7.5% at the closure of the first quarter of this fiscal year. Next. We have here a zoom concerning the correlation existing for the weather-related factors and the consumption rate. I was anticipating that the consumption rate in the first quarter is exactly the same as we saw in summertime last year, although that in terms of the average temperatures, particularly the month of January, were lower compared to last year.
We also observed more rainfalls registered in the first quarter, as we can observe in the first chart on the right-hand side. This is being monitored constantly in a way to anticipate and to analyze the evolution of the consumption rates in the metropolitan area. Now, in the next slide, and to conclude this presentation in the results. I was explaining before and the evolution of the EBITDA, and then we have three important topics. First of all, the depreciation and amortization, which is increased as a result of the new assets that have been included in our balance sheet as a result of the investments that the company is developing right now. At the level of the financial results, the result is associated to higher revenues because of three reasons.
The evolution of the monetary correction related to the financial debt that is nominated in UF. This accounts for CLP 12.3 billion, considering that the evolution of UF in the first quarter of the present fiscal year was 0.3% compared to 1.2% last year in the same period of time. Additionally to this, we have the positive evolution of the financial expenses that represent over CLP 2 billion because of the change in the makeup of our financial debts. We have reduced also the part related to the stock of bank loans. Finally, CLP 2 billion of improvement in financial results as a product of what Miquel Sans commented before, this even allowed to consolidate this at the closure of the first quarter. At the level of taxes, we have more taxes because of two major reasons.
First of all, because we have more income before taxes, and we have a lower monetary correction of the tax-related income. We have these benefits of CLP 62 billion that represents over 2% concerning the same period of time of the previous year. If I continue with the presentation now. In here, we can observe now the evolution of the cash flow that is solid throughout the first quarter. This is leveraged by the operational flows with an increased collection rates, 0.7% higher than last year. In the tax related area, we are paying less taxes, and we are now recording a lower rate of provisional payments on a monthly basis out of these CLP 6 billion of tax in the first quarter. We have the investments, and mainly we have the seasonality that takes place by performing these projects of investments.
We have free cash flow that is represents around CLP 12 billion compared to the same period of time last year. To conclude this part of the explanation, we have some selling of the assets and in the dividends. It is important to consider that in January last year, we paid the provisional dividends. Concerning now the retentions of the payments of dividends of foreign shareholders, and therefore we had a disclosure of the quarter of this amount that represent CLP 49 billion additional compared to last year. This is reflected in the following charts when we see the evolution of the cash flow and our financial debts.
First of all, we can observe the position of the cash flow that is the same one that we had at the beginning of the quarter, because with this positive growth, we have amortized the debts we had with some banks, and we close with the same level of cash flow of the beginning of the year. This can be observed also in a positive manner as compared to the evolution of the debt that grows up as the effect of the monetary correction. We also have the positive effect of the generation of cash flow. The makeup of this debt is observed here on the graphs, and where the bonds are the main instrument of financing. We have the different financial contributions and the bank loans.
Our debt is basically with a fixed rate with a 98%, this allows to amortize any fluctuation in the market. The rest is nominated in UF. As you know, we also have international debt in Japanese yen, in Australian dollar, and Swiss franc. One third of our debt is green and social debts. Our evolution continues to be steady and positive in terms of what we have realized in the present quarter. As we will see in the last slide is the evolution of the financial indexes. Next. I would like to further elaborate about the plan of investments, the robust investment plan. We have CLP 42 billion that have been performed in the first quarter, and we have an investment plan that is highly focused on the water security, operational resilience, and sustainability. Everything is well leveraged in our Biociudad plan.
Most of our investments are being developed in the renewal area for the potable water and also for the wastewater. Additionally, we continue to work in the upgrading and the higher ability of water treatment in the localities of the country, and everything related to the plan of water efficiency continues to be a fundamental pillar in order to improve the resilience and efficiency of the system, as well as the management of assets with a long-term outlook for the fixed assets of the company. As a summary, we have this investment plan that continues to be active, very wide, and highly focused on the commitments of water sustainability. All of this hand in hand with our Biociudad agreements and respecting all the agreements that we had with the investment that will be continuously performed in the five-year period. We can see this slide.
In the next slide, we can see more precisely the evolution of our main indicators, financial indicators that reflect our structural financial situation and standing. We have the EBITDA that is 9x with a return of the employed capital that has been kept between 9.6% and 9.7%. We have the gains or profits over CLP 20 per share, and the indicators of liquidity and leverage that are very healthy, very stable in time and over the standards of the industry. To conclude, we have the net debt that is below 3.4x , and we can say that in May we had the pay-out of dividends that Miquel Sans was commenting at the beginning of the presentation.
As a summary, at operational level, the company continues to consolidate the evolution, hand in hand with an efficient management for the operational cost and non-operational cost of the company, together with the growth of the rates and with an efficient management of our cash flow and our debt, which allows to ratify once again the refinancing for our investment plan without affecting significantly our financial indicators, and we can be always at a healthy and stable standing. Next, I will give the floor to Edson Landeros, who will share with us a very important talk regarding the weather conditions on the planet.
Thank you, Cristian. Good morning. I will talk about the climate context and how we consider that climate will be for the next months of the year. First, we're going to talk about the present context. This is what we're experiencing right now. As we all know, we are going through a climate scenario that has brought a mega drought for more than 14 years, between 2009 and 2023. There were many consecutive years and it caused a deficit. This was broken in 2022, 2023, 2024, where we had a relatively normal year. Last year, in 2025, 2026, we started having a dry year again. This was characterized mainly by a phase of the El Niño phenomenon, which was a neutral phase, and this caused less flows in the river and less rainfall compared to the average.
The present scenario is El Niño that is receding. We're leaving the neutral phase. Right now we are at the neutral phase, but the trend is that we will go into El Niño phase in the next few months. What we see for the next months, particularly for the winter, which is what we are interested in because we want to have rains in that period, the projections indicate a El Niño condition between mid and moderate, and this will increase as the year progresses in order to have a spring and summer with a projection of El Niño, with probabilities of being a moderate to strong El Niño phenomenon. This is seen in the forecast. Here you see how the El Niño 3.4 zone is warming up, and this is the zone that is used to define the El Niño phenomenon.
This provides more probabilities for rainfall during the end of the winter months. Now, we need to be clear that El Niño has some uncertainties. To the left, we see several years. Each circle is one year, and what we see in this graph is that the general trend in El Niño is that although there are wet years, there are also years where there are dry years, for example, 2015 and 2016. It was forecasted that we will have a Godzilla El Niño, but in terms of rainfall, it was rather dry. A rainy year, El Niño year, what does it cause? Well, more snow accumulation, particularly if the rainfall is during the winter. This will allow us to have flow rates in the rivers during the spring and also during the summer.
It will be more sustained during this period until the end of the summer. There is an increased recharge of the aquifers, which will allow us to accumulate water for the future when there are uncertainties in terms of rainfall. There is a greater storage of water in the El Yeso reservoir, which is a strategic reserve for the city. El Niño, particularly if it brings greater strength in the summer and the spring, will bring higher temperatures, and mainly there will be some heat waves during the summer. There is a probability of extreme precipitation events, particularly convective storms with high turbidities. This could lead to a greater sediment transport, and in this sense, this could affect some of our intake points for the production of drinking water. Now, the company has implemented several measures. This is what we have today.
We have 37 hours of autonomy in our adaptation plans and in mitigation measures for these turbidity events. We have 37 hours where we can be disconnected from the turbidity moments of the rivers. We have a Pirque reservoir with 1 billion cubic meters and also ground waters that will allow us to continue the service during these periods. Also we have a power backup that has more than 300 generators, and this will allow us to have resilience given possible blackouts. This could be associated to intense rainfalls and also a supply plan, as an alternative supply plan, if there is a greater incident, we will have drinking water available for the city if there is a greater incident. This is a tactical aspect. This is what lies behind our strategy in our adaptation strategy to climate change.
For many years, Aguas Andinas has been developing a strategy in order to adopt concrete solutions, and this increases our resilience and also maintain, in the long term, a sustainable water supply to the city that has more than seven million inhabitants, and this is done in a resilient manner. This here is a set of projects that allows us in a concrete and innovative manner, and also friendly with the environment, to have solutions in order to guarantee the water supplies for the population. These are five pillars. Resilience, where we want to increase these 37 hours of autonomy, new water sources to incorporate new resources in our productive matrix. Also, the optimization of groundwater sources in order to increase our groundwater sources and be able to use it.
to implement solution that are nature-based that will allow us to do a recharge of the aquifer in these years that are more abundant in terms of rainfall. promote the responsible use of water in both internal as well as external in order to have better measures and more efficiency in the use of our resources. Thank you.
Thank you. With this, we've finished the presentation that we have prepared, and now we will begin the questions and answer session. The first question that we have is regulatory. In May 2026, we expected the execution of the last base rate increase in Aguas Cordillera, according to what was established in the rate review. Is this effective or has a decree not been issued? This is for Cristian Torres.
Yes.
As I was saying, in Aguas Cordillera, in the last rate process, approved a 12% increase in the base rate. 6% was already made effective in July, 1% in November of last year, the remaining 1% will be effective starting May of this year. This is contained in the agreement in the rate decree that was signed with the Superintendency. We don't need an additional authorization, and we are applying this already starting in May of this year.
Thank you, Cristian. We have another question regarding the results. The administration and sales expenses increased almost 12% during the quarter. We understand that the main increase comes from the indemnizations aspect, and we attribute this to a specific effect. Do we see this at greater level as something that is more structural from now on forward? This question is for Miquel Sans.
Thank you, Denisse.
Regarding costs in general, Cristian was saying that there have been increases associated to income, specifically in these expenses with an increase of 12%. Indemnizations or compensations have to do with the time factor. There were similar amounts compared to last year's. What happens is that maybe there are some seasonal effects, and this will be happening for the rest of the year, and they should be normalized to levels that are similar to the previous years. Thank you.
Now, one question for Edson Landeros regarding the announcement of the government regarding the extension of sanitation works. What is happening with this? Under which criteria will these extensions be done, and what is the perspective of the company regarding this context?
Thank you, Denisse. Well, there are announcements about the concession areas of the sanitation company.
There is an expansion that occurred about 200 meters in the sanitation law, which is restricted to certain types of housing, social type housing, and that does not affect more than 5% of the production in each locality. Now, regarding other announcements, there are conversations being held, particularly for the urban territories, and this implies investments. Also we need to talk and adjust because we require new infrastructures that the company does not have in order to cover the whole urban area. There are several things that need to be defined in an area where there are sanitation areas, who will take charge of these expansions. There are many topics that we need to talk about. There is a housing shortage, and the company is interested in helping and collaborating in order to use these statistics, but this needs so as to provide a proper service.
Thank you, Edson Landeros. There is a question related to results as well. The non-sanitation income increased significantly, fostered by the liquid industrial waste. How would you see this growth from now onwards? Is this due to a specific situation or just because there is a low comparison foundation? This is for Cristian Torres.
Thank you. In the case of the structural process that are in line with the projection and the internal budget that we have already managed. In logistics, it's different because of its nature. The business has to do with the renewal of networks and materials, and that is seasonal. Both branches are in line with our projection for this year, and the trend globally will remain, and we hope that it remains stable during the year.
Thank you, Cristian. The next question is for Miquel Sans regarding CapEx.
We see that the execution phase of CapEx is in line with the guidance that is given yearly. Do we hope to maintain this trend in the following quarters, or see some?
The CapEx on the first quarter that was anticipated. In many fiscal years, the first quarter tends to be a quarter that is a little lower than the previous one. It is not that the trend is to multiply it by four. We hope that it's greater than that, and we hope that it is between CLP 250 million per year. We have works that are about to be awarded, and maybe in the next quarters, this will increase a little bit. As I was saying, it is within the parameters that we have anticipated the previous year.
Thank you, Miquel. One question, we change.
Considering that the flow of the Maipo River has had many years due to the drought, how resilient is the operation of the company if this condition goes beyond 2026?
As I said, during this mega drought, we have had consecutive years with dry scenarios between 60% and 70% of the flow rate of Maipo River. During that period, due to the way the company has improved its infrastructure and operations due to water scarcity, we have not had any effects during this drought, no effects in the population. Of course, with the infrastructures that we have, with the agreement, with the irrigation of the Maipo River, we should maintain this resilient condition for the next few years beyond 2026 that are perceived to be drought.
Thank you, Edson Landeros. We have a question regarding the operations and consumption.
How can we interpret this fact that the volumes of drinking water are increasing in a limited manner? Is this something that we are approaching in some way, or do we see this as a normal phenomenon, taking into consideration the general circumstances of the climate? This question is for Cristian Torres.
First of all, I would like to give you the overall context. When we see those statistics that are published by the Superintendencia de Servicios Sanitarios at the level of the country, we see a trend between the per capita consumption rates, which show a downward trend. This is something that we observe everywhere in the cities of the country. Therefore, Santiago is not an exception to that. When we further analyze the consumption rates throughout time and this particular time, the summer time, there are some weather conditions that do affect. For example, the effect of the drain and another important thing is the initiatives that help improve the measuring as part of the work in order to have the right measuring to the customers. This is something that we should consider in the longer period of time, not only seasonally.
We can comment, there is a nationwide trend and worldwide trend where Santiago and Aguas Andinas are not excepted, there are also some weather-related factors and the rainfalls that affect the evolution. As a company, we continue to develop further initiatives to optimize of measuring. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Cristian. The next question goes to Edson Landeros. Considering that the basin of Maipo River has a long series of drought, I would like to know how resilient is the operation of the company when we speak of the resilience and the robustness of the company, if this condition goes beyond 2026.
I think I already answered that question. To strengthen or to reinforce the answer, these scenarios in consecutive years had already been observed in 14 years between 2010 and 2020.
We didn't have major effects through the investments that we carried out, and this trend should continue. We also have an agreement with the irrigators of the Maipo basin, and this allows to guarantee the supply of water for the next 10 years.
Thank you very much, Edson. Now we have a question for Miquel Sans concerning the project of reform that is being discussed by the present administration and a potential rebate for the tax rates. What is the impact that we can foresee for the company in terms of the rate fixing and also the state income in the future?
I would like to say as a reminder, what we are seeing in the scheduling is the reduction for the next 25% for next year, 24% for 2028, and next 23%.
By reducing the tax rate, we will have an impact on the regulated rates that have a factor of correction due to the variations of the tax rates. This is a rate applied after taxes. There is this lowering of the tax rate, there would be a reduction and approximately we speak that every percentage point of tax rate represents CLP 4 billion of less income. We have a table that is attached to each one of the rate-fixing agreements, and it shows the impact of the modifications or alterations in the tax rate scheme. We will have a saving because this is lower than the amount that we are discussing here.
Finally, we will have an accounting impact of the net profit because the updating of the reversal rate as a function of the schedule will have an impact when we expect to recover those taxes. We calculate that it will be CLP 8 billion or CLP 9 billion because of these taxes deferred. In the case of the schedule of the application is the one that is being discussed today.
Thank you very much, Miquel. We have another question concerning the climate change, but focused on Biociudad. We ask this question to Edson Landeros. We would like to know which are the benefits of Biociudad planner related to all the impacts of the climate change that we are approaching here and developing throughout the presentation. Does the company consider necessary to have complementary projects additionally to what we already have in the portfolio described?
Concerning the possible effects of the climate change that are protected for the future, the projects of Biociudad imply, on one hand, more guarantee of water availability and water supply by optimizing our underground water and also incorporating new sources of water, the alternative of reuse that we have in the portfolio of Biociudad. We have all the other projects related to resilience and other effects of the climate change. For example, the frequency that is increased, and we can adapt ourselves and have solutions allowing to be more autonomous in terms of the exploitation of the Maipo River.
We are designing our strategy of Biociudad based on all these criteria and also how we can support these solutions in the long run related to the exploitation of groundwater more sustained in time, and also how we can work also in the demand and supply of the responsible use of water. Concerning now the project portfolio, these projects are very concrete, down to earth, but are not close-ended, and they are developed, and they are updated from time to time. At the same time, we are analyzing different options to render them more efficient and also including new solutions allowing to add more resilience in terms of what we observe for the climate change provisions.
This is a portfolio that is constantly under study and development for having the right planning to have a constant study in order to adapt ourselves to the new phenomena that are arising.
Thank you very much, Edson, and that was a very thorough answer. Now to conclude this event, we have the last question, and we'll address this question to Cristian Torres. This is related to the inflation rate and concerning the inflation that has been observed, how many indexations the company would expect to have for this present year.
First of all, as a reminder, the polynomial has three variables, where the inflation rate is the most important one. The other ones are related to the prices of manufacturing and the prices of the imported goods.
The polynomial indexation tries to recover the best cost structure of the company, and the indexation should reflect the increment when it is convenient and when it goes over 3%. As Miquel said beforehand, in the present year, we already activated the raise by the polynomial indexation with a rate of 9.9%. It is highly possible that the same applies to Aguas Cordillera and Aguas Manquehue as of June this year. As a matter of fact, the predictions of the inflation rates are close to 4% or over 4%, as some analysts project to have a higher level. It will accelerate the polynomial indexation, but it will depend on the two other factors, including the manufacturing and the import of imported goods.
There should be a tendency to 3% for the current years as there is no other change in the other variables that I was describing before. As of May, Aguas Andinas has this polynomial index of 9.1% of weighted average value.
Thank you very much, Cristian. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the speakers today and your participation today, all of you who have joined. In case that you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact the group of investor relations, and this presentation will be uploaded in our website so that you can review that later on. We will be expecting to provide you more results and have a great day and a wonderful week.