Earnings Labs

Braskem S.A. (BAK)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 9, 2012

$3.44

+1.78%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Braskem’s Third Quarter 2012 Earnings Conference Call. Today with us, we have Carlos Fadigas, CEO; Marcela Drehmer, CFO; and Guilherme Mélega, IRO and Corporate Controlling. 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 Braskem remarks are completed, there will be a question-and-answer section. At that time, further instructions will be given. (Operator Instructions) We have a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through Braskem’s IR website, www.braskem.com.br/ir. The slide presentation may be downloaded from this website. Please feel free to flip through the slides during the conference call. There will be a replay facility for this call on the webcast. We remind you that questions will be answered during the Q&A session will not be posted in advance on the website. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the Safe Harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Braskem 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 that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Braskem and cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I’ll turn the conference over to Mr. Guilherme Mélega, IRO of Corporate Controlling Officer. Mr. Mélega, you may begin your conference. Guilherme A. Mélega: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in another Braskem earnings conference call. Today, we’ll…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) The first question is from Frank McGann from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Frank J. McGann – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch: Yes, I was just wondering if may be you could give a little bit more color on the expansion in Mexico and timing and how you see that fitting into the broader demand supply situation in the U.S. and Mexico. And then secondly there has been talk of some asset sales the only ones that we mentioned relatively small, but I was just wondering how you see asset sales as part of your plan to manage the balance sheet? Carlos José Fadigas De Souza Filho: Hi, Frank, it’s Carlos Fadigas. Two very interesting questions, let me start by talking about Mexico. First of all the project schedule to start up at least 2015, from June 2015 about 30 months from now, it’s right now on time, on schedule. Although we haven’t signed the project finance package and that is expected to happen over the next month. Both Braskem and Idesa, 65 ownership by Braskem and 35 ownership on the JV by Idesa, a local Mexico chemical company. So the two shareholders of the JV have advanced funds to the projects so it has happened on time and on schedule especially because we keep money forward ahead of the financial package that as I said, it’s scheduled to be signed over the next one month. Most of the equipments have been brought what we call the long lead items and mentioning that first of all, it reduce the uncertainty of the start-up once we had already brought these equipments and on top of that, we found very interesting price conditions in Europe to buy this equipment at the point of time in which Europe is the…

Carlos Jose Fadigas de Souza Filho

Analyst

You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And the next question is from Fernando Valle from Citi. Please go ahead. Fernando Valle – Citigroup Global Markets: Hi, good afternoon guys. Just a quick question, you have previously talked about a project to lower taxation on asset purchases, so I just wanted to see what’s the status is on that project? Thanks.

Carlos Jose Fadigas de Souza Filho

Analyst

Fernando the project you’re mentioning is a proposal put forward by the Brazilian Chemical Association that worked together with the Brazilian Development Bank and also with Petrobras should produce a set of policies, proposal of policies should give to Brazilian chemical sector, a new dynamic, a stronger dynamic and help bring more competitiveness to this sector. That was the result of a world class roughly 10 months, second half of 2011, most of the first half of this year that has been presented to the boardroom back in May of this year and since then we’ve been actively logging for the approval of these proposals. It brings three sets of proposals, one talks about lower taxes on the raw materials that’s the most impactful in the short-term. A second one talks about lower taxation on investment. so CapEx in Brazil is reduced and the third one talks about innovation technology and incentives for innovation technology especially these innovations associated with green economy, green chemicals. As I mentioned we’re longing for an approval, we have been seen other sectors being aggressive. the need of other sectors being aggressive and actually Braskem has been benefitted by some of these broader incentives like the incentives on exports that is called [Integra] like the increase in import tariff that covered 100 products and included in this 100 products is the polyethylene. but we have to see our proposals, or our policy that targets really the Brazilian chemical Industry. It’s very hard for me to tell you when and if, when we have this approval. And actually I do believe, we’re going to have these approval at some point in time, it’s critical, our we’re longing for this approval and using the average of the Brazilian Chemical Association. The Brazilian chemical industry is a very relevant one for the Brazilian economy, which consider in due stability at some point it is the third and the fourth largest sector of the Brazilian industry and we do hope that some benefit at some point more likely in the beginning of the next year. We’ve been working very hard to, but it’s hard for me to tell you when the government we will make a decision on that. Fernando Valle – Citigroup Global Markets: Yeah, understood, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, and the next question is from [Fernando Ramos] from GBM. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good afternoon. Thank you for the call. Just a follow-up question regarded to Ethylene XXI project, in Mexico there have been, after you look all newspaper say and you have both you’re having some problems with the workers union and that actually you’ve a violent incident in your facility, so right now you can give a good information about these, it is difficult to affect in some ways, somewhat to start the portfolio? Thank you.

Carlos Jose Fadigas de Souza Filho

Analyst

Fernando, first of all unions in Mexico is very strong in sometimes it become violent as a nation. We first of all we have been investing a lot of time and effort in creating a working environment in a set of salary plus benefit that really differentiate this project from other job opportunities in the region. The State of Veracruz is very committed to this project. The Governor of this state is very committed to this project, it’s a huge investment of capital in this state, and we have got the support of the Federal government and of the state of Veracruz in handling our relationship and helping our relationship with the employees and also with the unions. Having said that, we haven’t had anything relevant, by relevant I mean something that could really change the schedule of the project that would stop work inside the project, and Braskem actually has a good track record in dealing with unions, with in review be it in the United States although we had a strike in the U.S. but we never stopped the production of the plant it was on strike. So we want to keep working with the local unions as I mentioned we already have a differentiated set of salary plus benefit to these workers. We have the full support not only of the current President Calderón, but also we have already had contact with the elected president, Enrique Peña Nieto he knows the project. We have discussed this project with him and he is also 100% supporting the Ethylene 20,000 project in Mexico. (inaudible) who knows the project quite well, he’s been at the project site several times and he has been also supporting us. So all in all, it will remain a point of attention because of the way some of unions behave, but at the end of the day, I think we are doing all the possible and right thing to do with towards that and I do not expect that to be a major problem or to cause any major problem to the scheduled project Ethylene XXI.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We have no further questions at this time. I’ll turn the call over to Mr. Carlos Fadigas for closing remarks. Carlos José Fadigas De Souza Filho: Well, I'd like to thank you all again for joining us for this call. I would like to apologize for the delay in the beginning of the call and we’re going to be working hard for that to make sure that it will not happen again, and my final comments has to do with our strategy and the management commitment to and this strategy remain confident in the long term, we will be doing all the possible thing to increase profitability of the business. We will be working hard to reduce the costs. We’d be working hard to add value to the product that stem out of our [massive] progress. We’ve been working with the Brazilian authorities to bring back competitiveness to Brazilian industry and more specifically to the chemical industry and to Braskem and we’ve been successful in some of these fronts. We’ve been completing our Ethylene XX1 project on sched, on budget and we actually have a good track record of greenfield projects to deliver them on schedule and on budget. So that’s our commitment. If we are going to have most likely going to have core profit at (inaudible) different than what we been seeing so far, and by that I mean we will follow a profitability. On the other hand as we move to the longer term for ’13, ‘14 and then finally ’15, we do expect Braskem to increase its profitability as there is more economic growth as we bring Ethylene XXI projects on stream and on top of that as the overall profitability of the chemical industry improves. So it’s been – I see a challenging couple of years, but we’ve been keeping our strategy, our keeping our focus and increase profitability back again. Thanks again for your time. And I wish you all a good weekend.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today’s Braskem’s earnings conference call you may disconnect your lines at this time.