Earnings Labs

Ultrapar Participações S.A. (UGP)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 21, 2014

$5.87

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Ultrapar’s 4Q13 and 2013 Results Conference Call. There is also a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through Ultrapar’s website at www.ultra.com.br/ri. Please feel free to flip through the slides during the conference call. Today with us, we have Mr. André Covre, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, together with other executives from Ultrapar. 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 Ultrapar’s remarks are completed, there will be a question-and-answer session. At that time further instructions will be given. (Operator Instructions) We remind you that questions which will be answered during the question-and-answer session may be posted in advance in the webcast. A replay of this call will be available for one week. 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 Ultrapar 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 Ultrapar and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I’d like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Covre, who will present Ultrapar’s results in the quarter and discuss about perspectives. Mr. Covre, you may now begin the conference. André Covre: Thank you very much. Good morning everyone. Good afternoon, I guess to the people in…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. The floor is now open for questions. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Marcus Sequeira from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question. Marcus Sequeira – Deutsche Bank: Hello, good morning everyone. Good morning, André. I have two questions. The first one, I’m just trying to kind of establish a relationship for market share gains in Ipiranga and how much points of EBITDA can you get only from kings of [ph] scale. So if you could help me with that? And then the second question is more general. How the economy has been performing since you last spoke about your EBITDA expectations for this year on a consolidated basis? I’m just wondering if, how the company has done, if that changes your plans to invest in Ipiranga, probably not, because you just reiterated that, but just how you’re expectations of EBITDA growth for 2014 if they have changed at all? Thanks. André Covre: Hi Marcus, thank you for your questions. On the first one, if you look at the last three years, we have grown between 1 and 2 percentage points, more on the markets. And that’s probably a pace that we will continue for some years given the opportunity of growing the network, especially in the target areas of the North, Northeast and Midwest. The benefits of growing fast in the market go hand-in-hand with growing volumes overall. And that’s the benefit number one, providing operating leverage. I am sure you are familiar that contribution margins is around R$115 to R$120 in EBITDA margins, given around R$80 for the last 12 months and the difference between the two provides for operating leverage. Second, growing faster than the market allows us to improve our mix. We are growing and growing the percentage…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Felipe Dos Santos from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question. Felipe Dos Santos – JP Morgan: Hi André. Hi all. Yes, in terms of just some questions. The first one is with regards to the Marcus question before. You have reached the CapEx level that you announced at the beginning of the year. Do you still feel that this CapEx for this year could be having the same thing? I mean the CapEx could be as big as [indiscernible] elections and etcetera? André Covre: Well, there are three reasons we didn’t spend the capital budget for last year. First, in Ipiranga, in three of the expansions of storage facilities, we are delayed to licensing. In Oxiteno, we delayed the potential expansion in Pasadena for this year. In Ultracargo, there was an investment to be made in Suape for vesting the terminal for a particular client and the client decided to do the investment themselves in our facility. So these things explain the CapEx below last year. But this year, the expectation is to make the R$1.5 billion capital expenditure. We don’t have a reason to believe that we will have selected elements like last year not to spend it. Now we are on 21st of February, CapEx budget is the living thing. It’s a limit approved by the board. We don’t have to expand it. And therefore we exercise our judgment over the year – that’s through [ph] the timing of the various things. Felipe Dos Santos – JP Morgan: Great. And my second question is regarding the expansion of the Ipiranga to the white flag gas stations. Is there a limit of volume that you look in for each gas station or you look a location, I mean how is the company’s strategy forward for these conversions of the gas stations? I mean is there any further way to state this is too low that if don’t were to look at or do you don’t have this kind of concern? André Covre: Firstly, there are three elements to look for; location, size and quality of the reseller. And it’s through those three elements that would select our business partners. Given the number of white flags in Brazil and that they have today 23% of the market, I think that there is ample opportunity for many years to continue to do this. Felipe Dos Santos – JP Morgan: Okay, that’s perfect. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our next question comes from Tom Aspee [ph] from BKA [ph]. Please go ahead with your question. Tom Aspee [ph] – BKA [ph]: Thank you. Could you comment further please on inflation expectations for 2014? And then a related question. Do you expect any increased use of hedging in 2014? Thank you. André Covre: The inflation that we have factored into our budgets for 2014 is very similar to the one that we saw in 2013. In terms of hedging, Oxiteno is in dollar life business, and as a consequence, we carry some debt in dollars matching therefore cash flows and that independent currency. And we don’t expect to change the level of that relationship.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And at this time, we’re showing no additional questions. I would like to turn the conference call back over to Mr. Covre for any closing remarks. André Covre: All right. Well, thank you very much. This is good 2013. Happy 2014. We’ll talk with you in a few months when we talk about the first quarter. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today’s Ultrapar’s 4Q13 Results conference call. You may now disconnect your telephone lines.