Earnings Labs

BrasilAgro - Companhia Brasileira de Propriedades Agrícolas (LND)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 30, 2018

$3.81

-0.91%

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Same-Day

+4.26%

1 Week

+1.42%

1 Month

-0.57%

vs S&P

-1.00%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to BrasilAgro's Conference Call concerning the earnings of Q4 and full year 2018. We have with us Mr. André Guillaumon, CEO; and Mr. Gustavo Lopez, Administrative Officer and Investor Relations Officer. We inform that the presentation is recorded. And the participants will be in listen mode only. Next, we will begin the Q&A session, exclusively for investors and analysts when further instructions will be supplied. [Operator Instructions] The audio is being presented simultaneously on the Internet at www.brasil-agro.com, where you'll find also the supporting slides and PowerPoint presentation. Before continuing, we'd like to clarify that any declarations that may be made during this conference call concerning the business perspectives of BrasilAgro, projections and operational goals, financial goals are based on assumptions of the company's board and on the information currently available. They involve risks and uncertainties because they refer to future events and, therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operational factors may affect the future performance of BrasilAgro and lead to results that will differ materially from those expressed in these considerations. Now, I'd like to pass the floor to Mr. André Guillaumon, CEO, who will begin the presentation. Sir, you have the floor. André Guillaumon: Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be part of you again and celebrate with the folks of our work here and bring to you very positive news in a market that was very incompetent to manage, but we're very optimistic with the company's proposal, our strategy, our objectives for the year and the company. These results show the commitment on the part of us to deliver the results. It's a year we'd like to say that company is now in a new era, a…

Gustavo Lopez

Management

Thank you, André. Good afternoon. Thank you for participating. And now, let's talk about the numbers, the actions that we have carried out. Here on Page 13, we would like to present to you some numbers, the strong results we are delivering. Here, we excluded the sales. We included Paraguay. We have an EBITDA of BRL90 million. And production of grains, as already mentioned, the actions we have carried out. Cattle raising activity that decreased since volatility, inclusion of mature developed areas and also leasing of lands. Here, we have a graph where we show the participation of the leased areas. 22,000 hectares of sugarcane, 7,000 of grain and the company's objectives are to continue to have leased areas in grains and cattle raising to counteract the risk we have in the year. These activities are different from what's happened in the past. They allow us to have an operational results and a positive cash flow and thus we don't have to deliver -- thus, we don't have to sell farms to deliver results. 150 million total production here, 50% is sugarcane, 50% grains, especially soybean. And for us, it was a year with much higher profitability than we had because of the harvest problems in Argentina and higher price of soybean in Brazil, we were able to capture these results. So it was a different year. And sugarcane in São José has changed the company's operational level. Then we have expenses with sales BRL45 million, appreciation in developing areas, shifting total EBITDA of BRL90 million. Now on Page 14, reminding you that as of this quarter, we're beginning to present EBITDA with the new accounting standards. So we get to the same results. But we decided to adopt best practices. We closed an adjusted EBITDA, as you can see…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mr. Duarte Thiago from BTG Pactual. Mr. Thiago you may proceed.

Duarte Thiago

Analyst · BTG Pactual. Mr. Thiago you may proceed

First question concerning the price of land in Brazil. When we look at the reports of S&P, we see that appraisal was low recently. When you look at the quarter, you see an appraisal of 12.6% by Deloitte. I believe that these values make sense, looking also at productivity during the last year. I'd like to hear from you the reason for the difference between the data in the market S&P and the ones you presented. And with this scenario, productivity, profitability and price of S&P lower in the last few months, we should have good opportunities to buy land in the near future. And also the sale of land to foreigners. Has this affected the negotiations on your side? André Guillaumon: Excellent, two excellent questions. These are questions, it would be pleasure to talk about them for hours. Well, the first question, yes, it's worthwhile talking about this. Our properties, they appreciates due to market appreciation. And as you said, this was small appreciation. But the great driver for our assets to appreciate is through the transformation, the development of the land. So transformation this year was not very intense, excluding Paraguay. What we call Paraguay in our areas that makes levels of maturity with productivity, industry that makes the land more valuable. When we look at a portfolio that is mature, we would have an appreciation that is similar to that of the S&P report. So that is the strategy of the company, transform the land, develop the land by making it arable and thus this year becomes mature. So when we look at the portfolio in the graph, we have 28% of the properties being developed. So year-after-year, so the appraisal comes from this year and the appreciation is not in the mature. It's in the land that is being developed, where productivity is rising thus being more valuable, so this is the important part. This is a characteristic that we won't have in the company. The company has the capacity to generate value by developing the land, transforming the land. While trying to answer your second question, I'd like to answer the question as a manager. The second is not for me.

Gustavo Lopez

Management

Yes, we have worked. We are working on this issue of sales to foreigners. Class entities are working on this global associations because we always say our concern is not a restriction to foreigners, because the country needs capital. So I see this with a lot of optimism, and we have talked to politicians and others. So I believe that after this turbulence of the elections, we may have some positive answers in these scenarios. And we had meetings with the legal department of the government look for us to cattle raising. We see a favorable environment for investments from abroad. So -- but we're waiting for the election of the new President in order because we have right now government with more than 84% rejection. So if we look at what was approved, roughly nothing was approved by Congress. Now linking this with the sale of land and liquidity, we'd like to stress that the sale of land to foreigners represents very little of the sale of land in general. In our scenario, what helps the market are the aggressive margins and also in the last year in the state of Bahia. When you have an interest in production margin and profitability, then -- so does this remove liquidity? This issue of foreigners in some areas, when you have very large assets, maybe it would. But if you divide, like Jatobá, we see that this is the right path. The Brazilian land market works the following way, producers selling to producers. I believe that more than 99% of the transactions are from one producer selling to another producer. What challenges us, we are an anti-cyclic company. When the producer has profitability, I want to sell. When they don't have profitability, I want to buy. So answering the second question. If we understand that the market will remain with lower profitability, this will generate purchases. If the profitability is high, we will sell. We will always be an anti-cyclic company. Hope I understood your question. Thank you. Good afternoon.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Since there are no more questions, I'd like to pass the floor to Mr. André Guillaumon for his final comments. André Guillaumon: Well, thank you very much for this opportunity to have this transparent chat. We thank you for your trust in our business, in our company and our management. And we thank you, we thank the team. As Gustavo said, the results we are delivering is due to an enormous effort on the part of our team. And I would like to highlight we mentioned this. We were certified as an excellent place to work, our company. So this shows that we're on the right track in people management. Well, it was a great pleasure to know that this result is due to many actions carried out, aggressive sales, also good people management, people committed to deliver results. Once again, you can count on us. In the next year, we are here to have recurring results and more important results. We have an important result in real estate. We will do better in 2019 to continue to have the results we had this year. Our strategy, I hope, was clear to you and through our Investor Relations department, Ana Paula and Elisa, they're always ready to clarify any points that you may have. Any questions, feel free to contact them and if you want to understand better about the business, more about the business, feel free to get in touch with us. Thank you very much, and have a good afternoon.

Operator

Operator

The conference call of BrasilAgro for the earnings of Q4 and 2018 full year is ended. We thank you all for your participation. Wish you a good afternoon.