Emilio Federico Gnecco
Analyst
Thank you, Mariano. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to Page 4 with a summary of our consolidated financial results. Sales totaled $392 million during the second quarter while on an accumulated basis, they reached $716 million. Higher volumes sold across all our operations more than offset the lower prices seen for most of our products on a year-to-date basis. Adjusted EBITDA marked a 60% year-over-year decline in both periods, reaching $55 million during the quarter and $91 million year-to-date. Lower results were mainly explain by losses in our biological assets in line our Sugar, Ethanol and Energy businesses on lower production. As well as in our crops and rice operations on lower prices. In addition, results were also negatively impacted by higher costs in U.S. dollar terms in our farming division together with one-off expenses incurred by the company in connection with Tether standard offer. Now please turn to Slide 5. Regarding our production figures on the bottom right chart, we can see that crushing volume in our Sugar, Ethanol and Energy business was 20% lower year-over-year due to a combination of less effective milling days during the second quarter and a selective slower milling pace adopted during the first months of the year. On the other hand, total production in our farming business reported a 12% year-over-year increase, explained by higher planted area as well as a record productivity in our rice operations. In the case of crops, harvesting activities are almost complete for the 2024, '25 season and the average yield obtained was below our initial expectations. We will describe this in more detail during the presentation. Let's move to Slide 7 with the operational performance of our Sugar, Ethanol and Energy business. After experiencing below-average rainfall during 2024 and early 2025 and precipitations received during April aided our sugarcane yields. Nevertheless, the distribution of rains led to a reduction in effective milling days and consequently, a decrease in our crushing volumes during the quarter, which totaled 3.4 million tons. Although productivity indicators remain below the prior year, due to the lagging effect of the dry weather explained before, this saw a significant improvement versus the first quarter of 2025 as anticipated. On a year-to-date basis, we have already crushed 4.9 million tons of gain, 20% less than the same period of last year. This was due to a selective slower crushing done in early 2025, focused on gain with limited growth potential and a rainy second quarter that consequently slowed down our crushing base. In terms of mix, we continue to maximize sugar production throughout the year given its attractive premium. Within our ethanol production, we are maximizing the production of hydrous ethanol, given the better margin. Let's please turn to Slide 8. where we describe sales conducted throughout the period. Net sales amounted to $183 million during the quarter, while year-to-date, they reached $302 million. The overall increase in sales was fully explained by our commercial strategy to sell our carryover stock of ethanol from last year as well as our daily production to profit from the recovery in prices and clear out our storage capacity. Consequently, we have already sold 320,000 cubic meters of ethanol at an average net selling price close to BRL 2,700 per cubic meter, 18% higher year-over-year. Regarding sugar, the combination of lower prices and the decline in production given the lower crushing were the main drivers towards the decline sales year-to-date. Nevertheless we were able to profit from the sale of bagged VHP, during the quarter, which commanded a premium over spot prices. In the case of energy, higher selling prices more than offset the decline in volume exported driven the lower milling year-to-date. Regarding carbon credits, we sold over 390,000 CBios at a average price of $10 per CBios, reaching $4 million in revenues. Please go to Page 9, where we would like to present the financial performance of the Sugar, Ethanol and Energy business. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to $68 million during the second quarter and $98 million for the first half of the year, despite presenting higher sales results were mainly offset by year-over-year losses in the mark-to-market of our biological assets on lower volume of harvested cane, together with a year-over-year of losses in the mark-to-market of our commodity hedge position, due to less [ gains ] presented compared to the same period of last year. Finally, to conclude with the Sugar, Ethanol and Energy business, please turn to Slide 10 we would like to briefly talk about the current outlook. As explained in prior releases, our sugarcane plantation has gone through different weather events throughout the last 1.5 years. However, our annual crushing forecast remains unchanged, to, first, our continuous harvest model that enabled us to flexibly advance or delay harvesting activities together with higher cane availability due to the expansion planting made during the last years as well as to higher sourcing of third party cane. This in turn, will result in flat to slightly higher cash costs versus the previous year. From a commercial point of view, we are constructive on both sugar and ethanol prices for the upcoming months as we still have the flexibility to switch our maximization strategy to always produce the product that offers the highest marginal contribution. In the case of sugar, we still have a portion of our 2025 sugar production still unhedged and no commitments for the next year in order to profit from any upside in spot prices as the global supply and demand balance continues to rely on Brazil's production. In ethanol, inventory levels are considerably below the prior year and the industry continues to prioritize sugar production due to its premium. On the demand side, parity at the pump continues to favor ethanol consumption and new demand has emerged with implementation of the E30 mandate. Therefore, any decline in crushing volume could further pressure this tight scenario. Now we would like to move on to the Farming business. Please go to Slide 12. As of the beginning of August, we have a say 97% of the total area and produced over 1.2 million tons of agriculture produce. The remaining hectares are expected to be fully harvested during the rest of this month. Despite the precipitations received from February onwards, some of our crops were impacted by periods of dry weather and high temperatures excess rainfall or even below average temperatures. Therefore, average yields for this half season ended up below our initial expectations in line to below historical average. In Rice, our work on seed generics and the implementation of new technologies resulted in an average yield of 8 tons per hectare, a new record for this business. In the case of dairy, we are working on reversing the decline in cow productivity seen year-to-date. At the industry level, we continue to maximize the production of UHT milk for the domestic market, product that offers the highest marginal contribution while developing our brand portfolio across several markets. To conclude, we began planting activities for our next campaign starting with wheat and other winter crops. We have foreseen a reduction in planted area of approximately 20,000 hectares versus the prior campaign due to our decision to reduce our exposure in the northern region of the country as well as to diminish the amount of lease area to improve crops margins. On the following Page 13, we present the financial performance of our farming business. Adjusted EBITDA for the Farming business totaled $1 million during the quarter, whereas year-to-date amounted to $18 million. Starting with our Crops segment, the year-over-year decrease in results was mainly driven by an uneven year-over-year comparison as in April 2024, we sold La Pecuaria farm we generated $15 million in adjusted EBITDA. Furthermore results were also impacted by lower international prices lower-than-expected productivity and higher costs in U.S. dollar terms, which combined continued to pressure margins during the period, mainly for our peanut production. Moving on to rice, the decline in adjusted EBITDA during both periods was mostly explained by the outlier prices reported the prior year coupled with higher cost in U.S. dollar terms, which in turn fully offset the record production at the farm level. Lastly, adjusted EBITDA generation in our dairy business was impacted by higher costs in U.S. dollar terms, despite the increase in volumes sold, our work towards improving the mix of higher value-added products and maximizing the production of fluid milk for the domestic market. Please turn to Page 15 for a broader view of our debt position. Net debt amounted to $699 million, 11% higher year-over-year. This was due to higher short-term borrowings raised to finance working capital in our farming business, given the lower results presented at a consolidated level. Consequently, our net leverage ratio stood at 2.3x, 1 turn more than the same period of last year. Despite the increase, we continue with our disciplined capital allocation strategy, which also includes investing in growth projects with attractive returns and distributing cash to shareholders while keeping financial flexibility and a strong balance sheet. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, we completed the issuance of $500 million bond with a 7-year tenure and a 7.5% coupon. A portion of the proceeds was used to partially tender our 2027 Senior Notes totaling $150 million. This transaction improved our constant work towards anticipating our debt maturities and therefore, having most of our debt in the long term. As an example, the average life of our debt, which got extended from 2.5 years to 4.5 years. On the following slide, we describe our CapEX program. Expansion CapEX represented $23 million during the quarter and $53 million on an accumulated basis. In Brazil, expansion CapEx was mostly allocated to increasing our sugar cane implantation size and expanding our harvesting equipment with the acquisition two-row harvesters and grunner trucks. production capacity at San Salvador rice mill and some industrial improvement in our Monteros milk processing facility. Let's turn to Page 17, where we would like to present our shareholder distribution year-to-date. As of this date, we have already committed $45 million to shareholder distribution. From this amount, $35 million in dividends were approved, the first installment of $17.5 million was paid in May, representing approximately $0.175 per share while the second installment will be payable during November in an equal cash amount. In addition, we have already repurchased $10 million in shares under our buyback program, representing approximately 1.1% of the company's equity. Thank you very much for your time. We will now open the call to questions.