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Adecoagro S.A. (AGRO)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 16, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for waiting. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Adecoagro 2Q 13 results conference call. Today with us we have Mr. Mariano Bosch, CEO; Mr. Charlie Boero Hughes, CFO; and Mr. Hernan Walker, Investor Relations Manager. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After the company's remarks are completed, there will be a question-and-answer section. (Operator Instructions) Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Adecoagro's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand the general economic conditions; industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Adecoagro and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I’d turn like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mariano Bosch, CEO. Mr. Bosch, you may begin your conference.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Good morning everyone and thank for attending our call. I would like to go through some of the main highlights of the quarter. Our sugar and ethanol business have shown great progress compared to last year. Sugarcane crushing and [production] volumes have increased about 80% mainly driven by both one, a higher utilization of capacity as our Angelica mills and two the ramp up of the new Ivinhema mill. And we are happy with the start-up of this new mill that we completed last year. Now we focusing having an efficient harvest and keep our mills running at full capacity while we enter the peak of the harvest season. Agricultural and Industrial operations have improved significantly. Management is constantly reviewing processes to enhance our operation and results year after year. Regarding the farming business, we have completed the 2012-13 harvest year a bit below our expectations, mainly as a result of weather conditions. Soybean has been the most severely affected crop reaching the average yield lower than the previous harvest year, weather was less severe in the corn and rice crops which had better yields than last year. We are now fully focused in the new harvest, a planting of wheat will advance and we are prepared to start (inaudible) soybean, corn, rice, and the rest of the crops during the next semester. Our operational and contractual teams have already been assembled and are in the great shape to start working on the new harvest season that we are starting. I will tell you details how some important pieces in this quarter. We completed the sale of milk possibility facility La Lacteo, we also shut down our (inaudible) dairies and as a result we are proud to announce the 100% of our milking cows are under free stall [productive] system. With these changes we are confident that we will achieve our expected returns under daily business. Regarding the Land Transformation business we continue with our strategy of selling a portion of our transformed land every year. In order to allocate this capital in better [regenerative alternatives]. In the previous quarter. We announced a sale of our coffee farm at a 7% premium to Cushman appraisal. In the second quarter, we completed the sale of Santa Regina farm in Argentina at a 16% premium to the Cushman and Wakefield’s appraisal. Also I would like to highlight that we have reduced our corporate expenses and accept of Adecoagro's focus in improving returns for its shareholders. I would like to ask Charlie to roll over the performance of the quarter. Charlie, please, go ahead.

Charlie Boero Hughes

Management

Good morning, everyone. I would like to walk you through a few slides that reflect the main operational and financial highlights of the quarter. As you may see on slide 2, the 2012 and 13 harvest is practically complete. As of June 30, 2013 [201.8000] hectors or 93% of total area has been harvested. However as of the of the day of this call 98% of the area has been harvested, with only few hectares of net corn remaining. As anticipated in the first quarter earnings release, most of our crops have been affected by a lack of rainfall throughout the main productive regions in Argentina. Soybean was the most damaged crop both for the company and for farmers nationwide. Average yield where 10% and 15% lower compared to the previous harvest year. In the case of the corn crop, the impact of the drought was less severe, most of our corn was planted in September and November of 2012 with good soil moisture. The crops water requirement peak, is between mid- December and early January, when amount of water in the soil was adequate. Consequently the corn crop only suffered [stress] during the last stage of its growth cycle. Although yields stand 9.3% higher than the previous harvest year, they are below our expectations. In the case of rice the average yield of our rice farms was 5.7 tons per hectare, 4.6% higher than the previous harvest year are still below the potential of our farms. We expect yields to continue improving as we complete the transformation process and zero-leveling of our rice farms. On the left side of page three you may see a chart that shows the drought experienced enduring (inaudible) in Pampas, the country’s corn-fed region in the 2012 and ‘13 harvest years. Rainfall during January…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session (Operator Instructions). And the first question comes from Enrico Grimaldi of BTG Pactual. Please go ahead.

Enrico Grimaldi

Analyst

Hello, good afternoon everyone. I have two questions, the first one relates to the possibility of you guys selling more assets going forward. I mean you sold La Lacteo this quarter, which seemed like a good transaction, but going forward should we expect other transactional like these? And if so I mean can you share with us what sort of non-core assets you have today in the company that could be divested? That will be my first question.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Hi Enrico, this is Mariano. Yes, you should expect more sales of already the developed farms, those are the type of sales that you should expect on the next, during the future that’s exactly the same strategy during the future. That's exactly the same strategy, that we'd be having since we started with the company. We don't have any more noncore assets, so I don’t expect any sales of noncore assets, the noncore assets were La Lacteo and the coffee business which we've already sold.

Enrico Grimaldi

Analyst

Great, thank you, Mariano. And if I may my second question is related to sugar and ethanol business in Brazil. You said in your release that is for asking (inaudible) just for last month and you expect that you have very revolving back to you right, but at some 4% impact in next year crushing right. And again as my question is how do you think you can minimize the impacts from such a weaker sugarcane crushing next year, maybe looking putting differently here, what sort of measures could you guys take at management level, to minimize the impact of low crushing in your EBITDA for the [division] of next year that will be my second question. Thank you.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Enrico, what we've been doing and, Marcelo may add something, what we've been doing now in order to mitigate that a problem is that we've been accelerating our planting with a varieties that we could previously 12 month varieties. So that is one of the measures we've been doing. We are also buying sugarcane from third parties and we are also buying sugarcane from third parties, and we've start to close a small contract on sugarcane from third parties. So those are the measures we are doing. But having said this, we had enough sugarcane in our plant for next year, because during next year, we are not expanding new capacity, the new capacity coming from Ivinhema will be in 2015 and not in 2014. In 2014, we are planning to reach a full capacity in Angelica and Ivinhema at our current full capacity.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Giovana Araújo of Itaú BBA. Please go ahead. Giovana Araújo: Hi, good afternoon. My first question is about sugar and ethanol operations, one thing that calls our attention here is for the agriculture use tons of gain per hectare, it was pretty much in line with last year levels. And shouldn't your productivity be higher, year-over-year or higher versus the average of (inaudible) sector considering your cane feed is younger. Is it because of the weather or also because of the cane variety and I would like to know how do you see this productivity evolving going forward. First question.

Walter Marcelo Sanchez

Analyst

Hi, Giovanna. During this year, it's in line with last year as you are mentioning, mainly because we have a relative dry summer and that's why we are not seeing an increase that in those yields. In the future we should expect yields to continue growing as we go forward during the year and that’s because of many of the things we are doing on the new area that we are planting now like removing trees, like that you would expect like a 5% increase in yields, like the soil that we'll be improving as we add organic matter into that soil. So that’s why you should expect an increasing yields over the years and you should expect us maintaining the average age of the sugarcane inline what it is today. Giovana Araújo: Okay, okay, perfect. And my second question is about the land market if you can give us an update how land market is evolving in Argentina if liquidity is in line with what you guys were expecting or not? And what’s your expectation going?

Walter Marcelo Sanchez

Analyst

Are you asking only for Argentina or for both? Giovana Araújo: No mainly for Argentina.

Walter Marcelo Sanchez

Analyst

Okay. Land market in Argentina in terms of liquidity as we’ve always mentioned is relatively low and it is as we expected but we are being able to (inaudible) you can see in our reports and we feel comfortable, we will continue more or less with the same pace that we’ve been doing this year. In terms of pricing we are not seeing any increasing prices nor a decrease and we think that is what we are seeing in the market in terms of prices. We will have our Cushman and Wakefield evaluation in September and let's see what this independent valuation shows in terms of how they see the market.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Isabella Simonato of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Isabella Simonato

Analyst

As the crushing season starts in Argentina for some crops now, Mariano, could you give us an update of what do you expect in terms of planted area or yields for the 2013 and ‘14 season? Thank you.

Mariano Bosch

Management

Hi Isabella. In terms of our Adecoagro, we expect more or less the same planted hectares in what we did last year, and in terms of crops, also more or less in line taking in to account that we always prioritize the long-term profitability and the sustainability of our production system. So that’s why you don’t see a lot of changes in terms of the different crops or the mixing crops that we're planting this year. In terms of yields, we do expect an average yield and in an average year yields should be a lot better than what we had this year and last year.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our next question comes from Martin Tapia of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Martin Tapia

Analyst

I actually have a couple of questions. First one, during the second quarter of this year, total CapEx which is $48.5 million, how much was it related to the construction of the minimum yield and how much comes from sugarcane plantation and [materials] also?

Mariano Bosch

Management

Charlie do you want to answer that exactly.

Charlie Boero Hughes

Management

Basically we are invested in CapEx in the sugar and ethanol and energy about $46 million of which $23 million was for sugarcane planting and 23 for sugar and ethanol mills of which I would say that most of them was for Ivinhema and Angelica.

Martin Tapia

Analyst

Thank you and particularly the Ivinhema mills in terms of production is inline with your original estimations?

Charlie Boero Hughes

Management

Yes, Martin it’s a very much in line and we are very happy on how this startup is going, and it’s much better than what we did in Angelica when we did our first startup four years ago.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Okay this concludes the question-and-answer section. At this time I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Bosch for any closing remarks.

Mariano Bosch

Management

So before we end the call, we wanted to thank you all for joining. Now we have our semester full of challenges in all our businesses. The company is in great shape both from a financial and operational standpoint. All our teams are highly motivated and we are specific to our cost and we continue working to deliver effective results to our shareholders. So I look forward to see in our next IR event, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day.