Good morning, and welcome to Nuam's first quarter of 2025 investor conference call. My name is Bruno Alonso, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Nuam. The speaker for today is Patricio Rojas, Nuam's Chief Financial Officer. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Please be advised that this call is being recorded and that following the presentation, we will open the floor to questions from the audience in both English and Spanish. Further participation instructions will be given later on. The video recording and transcript of this call will be available on Nuam's website within the next few days. I will now repeat this information in Spanish for Spanish-speaking participants.
[foreign language]
Patricio, good morning and thank you for joining us. The floor is yours.
Thank you, Bruno, and good morning, everyone. Let's go to the agenda, please. We will start by reviewing the main contents of the presentation. First, we will go over financial, market, and corporate highlights to provide a general overview. We will move to the quarterly business performance, reviewing each business unit and other relevant information. Finally, we will go close to the key takeaways of our latest results.
Next slide, please. Okay, we will now move to the financial information. During the first quarter of this year, we had a steady financial performance driven by trading and value-added services units. Total revenues reached CLP 34.8 billion, which means a 3% of increase, where non-trading revenues increased in 1% compared to last year's first quarter, and trading revenues increased in 13% compared to last year's first quarter.
In the case of EBITDA, it reached CLP 14.4 billion, with a decrease of 6% compared to last year. We had a 41% EBITDA margin, down from 45% we had last year. Operating expenses had a decrease of 1% also compared to the first quarter of last year. In the case of net profits, we had CLP 6.6 billion, which means an increase of 360% compared to last year, and consequently, net margin increased in 19%, up from 4%. Before moving forward, we would like to highlight that from now on, all of our financial figures will be presented in Chilean pesos in order to be consistent with our financial statements that, under IFRS, have the Chilean peso as a functional currency. Despite that, we will keep giving a pro forma reference in U.S. dollars in the section of annexes of this presentation. Next slide, please.
Okay, we will continue with market highlights. There was an increase in average daily trading volumes during the first quarter, with almost $10 billion U.S. with an increase of 15%. We had a good performance in our main stock indexes, with MSCI Nuam increasing in 15%, the IPSA, the Chilean index, increasing in 14%, the COLCAP, the Colombian index, increasing in 16%, and the Peru Select increasing in 4%. We announced that we have a new stockbroker operating in Peru. We want to highlight from the last Nuam shareholders meeting that the dividend per share increased at 30%. It was approved a dividend of CLP 181. Talking about the dividend policy for this year, the profit distribution will increase from the previous 50% of profits to 70%.
Finally, we announced that we have a new board of directors that was elected during the shareholders meeting, with now 11 members, going down from the 16 members we had before. We have an outstanding performance of Nuam stock. The price in Chile, in Chilean pesos, is a bit more than CLP 5,000 with an increase of 31% compared to last year. In terms of volatility, which is a liquidity measure, we have an increase of 37 percentage points compared to last year, with 49% of volatility right now. The daily trading volume increased with an average of CLP 443 million a day, which is an increase of more than 200%. In terms of regional integration projects, there are some updates in the regional go-to-market strategy. For market testing, dates and milestones have been aligned with clients' needs.
For participants' development, testing will start in June and has been extended to a period of 12 weeks in total. For new trading workstation, testing will start next month in July. Finally, we would like to share some great news that were made public yesterday as a significant event. The harmonized trading rules for equities were approved by the regulator in Chile. Even though approval is still pending in Colombia and Peru, we maintain a fluent communication with those regulators. We are confident in receiving those approvals in the short term. Next slide, please. There has been a positive performance across all market segments, especially in equities, fixed income, and derivatives. The market capitalization increasing at 9%, reaching $371 billion during the quarter. Equities traded volumes increasing 45%. Fixed income traded volumes increasing 21%. Derivatives traded volumes increasing 11%, FX in 5%.
The total volume cleared increasing 3%. Finally, assets under custody increased in 5%. Next slide, please. We will now move on the business performance section. Related to income statements, we want to highlight that we had a stable performance in revenues growing at 3%. Operating expenses decreased in 1%. EBITDA decreased in 6%, dropping the EBITDA margin from 45% to 41% due to increases in other expenses and staff, all related to integration expenses. Net profit had a 360% increase, improving the margin from 4% to 19% due to a lower FX impact in tax provision and PPA adjustments in depreciation and amortization. Next slide, please. Revenues highlights. In general terms, we were able to maintain steady revenue that increased in 3% compared to last year first quarter. Listing and issuer services were affected by lower dynamism of extraordinary corporate events.
In trading, we had a double-digit increase fueled by positive dynamics in all market segments. In [Cyprus T rading], clearing and settlement was affected by lower rates in collateral management in Colombia, while custody services were impacted by lower activity and interest rates in distributions processing in Peru. The positive performance in information was driven by market access and price vendor services. Finally, we had a double-digit growth in value-added services driven by promissory notes and invoice registry. Next slide, please. We will now dive deeper into the individual business units. The listing and issuer services line was down 8% with CLP 4 billion in revenue due to lower generation of extraordinary issuance in Colombia. Overall, issuance volumes reached 61 corporate events, totaling almost $3 billion with an increase of 74% year-on-year.
The number of local issuers, just in the case of equity, decreased in a number of chain. In the case of fixed income funds and ETFs, we had some increases. In terms of issuance by category, the 61 corporate events are compounded by 23 related to debt issuance, 32 related to follow-ons, and 5 related to tender offers. All of those three totaling approximately $1 billion, each of them. Also, we had 1 stock buyback totaling $5 million. Next slide, please. Okay. The trading business unit had a strong 13% increase, reaching CLP 5.7 billion of revenue. We had a strong performance in all our exchange market segments, with a total volume of $274 billion, an increase of 23%.
In the case of equities, volumes increased in 45%, and the number of trades increased in 17%, with a total of 3.4 million transactions. In the case of fixed income, volumes increased in 23%, number of trades in 4%. In the derivatives market, volumes increased in 8%, while the number of contracts increased in 18%. Next slide, please. The clearing and settlement business unit had a decrease of 1%, reaching CLP 5.8 billion of revenue due to lower interest rates for collateral management. In terms of clearing volumes, we had an increase of 3%, reaching $458 billion.
On a year-over-year basis, total volumes by market are the following: fixed income, an increase of 1%, FX, an increase of 5%, OTC derivatives, an increase of 7%, on-exchange derivatives, an increase of 8%, equities, an increase of 39%, open interest increased in 24%, while collateral management increased in 41% compared to last year, with a total of CLP 112 million under management. Okay. The revenue from the custody business unit decreased in 3%, reaching CLP 10.5 billion, mainly impacted by lower activity and interest rates in distributions processing in Peru . There was a slight increase of 5% on securities under custody, increasing to $279 billion. In terms of securities under custody, equity had an increase of 10%, with $149 billion, and fixed income remained with no changes with $130 billion.
Delivery versus payment and free of payment transactions increased in 47%, reaching 1 million transactions, distributions processing, the volume, increased in 3% up to $19 billion. Next slide, please. In the case of information business, the business line, we have an increase of 6%, up to CLP 4.7 billion, driven by positive performance in market access and price vendor services. Market data vendor and user subscriptions, both local and international, decreased in 15%, while workstations remain almost with no changes, with a total of a bit more than 2,000 workstations in the net. Regarding the price-year drivers, we had some decreases in subscriptions, for valuation inputs for OTC derivatives in fixed income local and in fixed income international. We have an increase of more than 200% in the number of contracts in OTC derivatives portfolio valuation. Next slide, please.
Value-added services had an increase of 21%, reaching CLP 3.7 billion, driven by outstanding performance in promissory notes issuance and registered invoices. Zebra Optimus systems, with 58% of the market share in Chile, had a decrease of two brokers in the case of Zebra, but an increase of one broker in the case of Optimus. In the case of Zebra, variable operation use increased in 16%, up to 82 million transactions, and in the case of Optimus, variable operational use increased in 2%, up to 11 million transactions. With the business of Factura, related to digital promissory notes, documents in custody increased in 19%. The issuance, the number of documents increased in 39%, and the number of transactions increased in 34%.
And finally, the business of Factrack, related to registered invoices, increased in 22%, up to 521,000 registrations. Next slide, please. Regarding operating expenses, they were down 1% compared to last year, due to mainly adjustments in depreciation and amortization. In the case of staff expenses, those increased in 8%, mainly explained by inflation effects, but also by a temporary increase in the headcount related to regional integration projects. Other expenses increased in 12%, also increased or explained by higher project related expenses, mainly to new technology licensing and fees, and data center maintenance and support services. In the case of depreciation and amortization, there was a decrease of 32% due to the PPA adjustments made by the end of last year, which is mainly explained by data adjustment.
So, 76% of the decrease is related to the PPA that was in the depreciation and amortization. Next slide, please. Okay. Finally, we will share the main takeaways from our first quarter results. Steady revenue performance with a 3% of increase driven by trading and value-added services business units. Consistent EBITDA margin at 41%, with stable revenues and transitory increases in expenses. And Nuam a single market project schedule, was adjusted based on client development needs and testing and testing progress. So, now I will give the word back to Bruno for the questions and answers session.
Great. Thank you very much, Patricio. We will now open the floor to questions from the audience. If you would like to participate, please keep in mind the following instructions. Dialing participants must press star two in their phones in order to raise their hands and wait for the microphone to be unmuted. Web participants can use the ask via audio option located on the right-hand side of their screen and wait for the microphones to be unmuted as well. Questions may also be written directly on the Q&A tab on the right-hand side of your screen.
[Foreign language]
So, we will start with a few questions that have been sent to us via chat and the written. We'll going to read them out loud in the language they were made.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language] We're going to go ahead and take a verbal question. Felix Garcia from Apalache Research. You may go ahead. Your microphone has been unmuted.
Thank you very much for the call and congratulations on the results. I have two questions. First, regarding the decline in clearing and settlement revenues, could you provide more color on what drove that decrease? Secondly, where did you expect the EBITDA margin to land in 2025? Thank you.
Very well. I'll take the first one, if you don't mind, regarding the decrease in clearing and settlement revenues, that was mainly caused by a decrease in collateral management. Even though the volumes increased, not all of the collateral management volumes actually generate revenue, only a portion of them do. We had a lower portion of them generating revenue, and also this collateral is placed at an overnight rate, and that's how the revenue is generated. If the interest rates go down, so will the revenue. Regarding your second question, Antonio, could you please remind us? It was regarding the EBITDA? Felix?
Come with you.
Your microphone is unmuted.
Yeah. Where do you expect the EBITDA margin to land in 2025? Thank you.
Well, in general terms, we do not give estimations of the numbers for the future. In general terms, our business is very steady, so we shouldn't have big differences while we keep the concept that we have right now, which is different and separated businesses still in Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Of course, we should see some differences once the integration begins in operational terms, which, as we have said, is a process that we are just starting now with the testing. After that, we should put into production the new trading platform, and after that, also the clearing and settlement platforms. In general terms, we do not expect big changes in those margins. Of course, after the integration begins, probably we should see better numbers since the market should be bigger, and also the attraction for intermediaries and investors should be greater also.
Thank you, Patricio, and thank you, Felix, for your question. We will now move on to another one. This one comes from Mr. Ignacio [Llanos] from [ Penta] Enterprises. I'm going to read that out in Spanish.
[Foreign language]
Yes. It is very similar to the question we just answered. I would say that the numbers we are having right now shouldn't be too different, and in that sense, I think are quite normal. I don't think I have too much to add about that.
Great. Well, thank you, and thank you, Ignacio, as well. The next question comes from Garrett King from Truffle Hound Capital. He says: "Can you explain why lower interest rates reduce revenues in Post-Trade? My impression was that the pricing segment related to total volume cleared and assets under custody."
Yes, indeed. Thank you, Garrett. I just explained how collateral management works and how it was affected by interest rates in the clearing and settlement business line. Regarding custody, when it comes to distributions processing, some of the corporate events funds that must be delivered to the issuer, they are received ahead of time. Those funds are placed at an overnight rate. If those interest rates go down, so will the revenue generated by them, which is shared with the issuer.
That's how we explain the twofold impact by interest rates in both custody and clearing and settlement. We'll now move on to the next question from Conrado Teixeira from ICM. The question is: "EBITDA margin declined this quarter, impacted by softer top-line growth and rising costs. Looking ahead, how should we think about margin evolution? Do you expect this trend to persist, or is there room for recovery in the coming quarters?"
Yes. As we explained during the presentation, we had some increases in expenses that are transitory, that are related with the integration process. We expect that to continue during the following quarters, but it should decrease once the integration begins to get into production. It's just transitory. In the long term, we should see better behavior in that aspect.
Great. Thank you, Conrad, for your question. The next question comes from Manuel Pincheira, and reads: "[Foreign language]"
Well, that business is mostly in Peru. We don't have any estimations to start having that business. So far, there will be no changes in that matter.
Great. Thank you, Manuel, for your participation. There are no more written questions in the chat. We see there's a hand raised, and Felix, we're going to go ahead and ask you if you have another question to ask. Right, it seems like the hand was lowered. We received another question from Eduardo Greca from ICM. The question reads: "Hi. How do you see the optimal capital structure of the company? Does it make sense to have the significant amount of cash in the balance sheet and at the same time regenerate so much cash?
In this case, we have to keep in mind that we're doing a heavily intense in terms of investments, as Patricio described, to comply with our plan of investment. At this point, we have cash enough to respond to our compromises related to this future, but during the next quarter and the second half of the year. We don't think that we have an excess in terms of cash. We need that amount, as I explained, in terms of being able to pay our main providers in connection with the integration business plan.
Great. Thank you, Eduardo, for your question. We're going to move on to the next one. Comes from Mr. Arturo Gana from Quest Capital. The question reads: "[Foreign language]"
Yes. I think we already talked about the first question. Of course, since some of the expenses are transitory, once we don't need to have those expenses, the EBITDA margin could rise a little bit. The second question, related with the tax percentage, we have to take into consideration that about 55% of our revenue comes from Colombia, where the tax is a 40% tax. In the case of Peru, we receive almost 20% of revenue from there, where the tax is around 29.5%. In the case of Chile, with the rest 25% of revenue, the tax rate is 27%. It should be a tax rate somewhere 30% something , 35% or 36%, of course, depending on the proportion of revenues, where they originate. This is more or less the tax rate we should expect in the long term.
Thank you, Patricio, thank you, Arturo, for your question. Before closing this question-and-answer session and moving on to some closing remarks, we would like to remind our participants once more that they can raise their hand and ask a verbal question, or they can also write them in the chat.
[Foreign language]
Bruno, [Foreign language].
[Foreign language]
Yes, hi. Regarding the camera in Perú, we are in the process with the regulators to get all the regulatory approvals in order to incorporate the camera in Perú. We expect to get those approvals mid of 2026 in order to be able to begin operations not before the fourth quarter of next year.
Okay, regarding the FX market, we have no news about that. We are really focused on the integration process. We have no news to describe right now.
Well, thanks very much for everyone for having joined our conference call. We are very glad you were able to participate. We will upload the video recording as well as a transcript soon in the investor relations section of our website. Our next earnings conference call will be in September. Thank you very much. Have a good afternoon.
Well, I'll be closing all the lines. Thank you and have a nice day.