Earnings Labs

Ultrapar Participações S.A. (UGP)

Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 8, 2014

$5.87

+1.21%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Ultrapar’s 2Q14 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 of Ultrapar. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in 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 Q&A 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’ll turn the conference 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: Good morning everyone. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you to discuss Ultrapar’s performance in the second quarter, which…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. (Operator Instructions) Please hold while we poll for questions. The first question comes from Frank McGann with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Frank McGann – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Hi, good afternoon. Just two questions, if I may. One, just in terms of inflation. I was wondering how you see this influencing your business over the next year say, and in terms of cost and profitability and what – whether that’s having any material effect on you, and how you try to deal with that? And secondly, in terms of Extrafarma. The outlook that you see for growth now say, versus when you purchased it. I’m not thinking over the next three quarters, I am just thinking over time, how are you seeing that business now compared to when you bought it. And what is your strategy here or how are you thinking of the mix of business between stand-alone stores and putting stores in service stations? André Covre: Thanks. I’m very pleased with your question. Thanks for joining us. On inflation, in the recent months, the inflation has been touching the limits of the upper boundary of inflation targets, and it’s therefore obviously a cause of concern. Inflation from our standpoint is never good. And we deal with it over time, particularly because we have businesses, some of them that are retail in nature. And therefore any inflation needs to be reflected in our profitability projections. So there is always two ways to deal with it. The one is to get more efficient, and other one is to dealing adjusting prices. We try to use both instruments to deal with it, and we have had meaningful inflation over the last several years and over the last…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Christian Audi with Santander. Please go ahead. Christian Audi – Banco Santander: André, a couple of follow-ups. As you look out on the competitive level at the Extrafarma sector, can you talk about two things? One, how you see the competitive dynamics, particularly as it relates to foreign companies potentially entering the Brazilian markets. And secondly, what’s your stance from an M&A point of view. Clearly as you’ve explained before 2014 is a preparatory year for the growth to come in the coming years, but if we were to see M&A activity this year, particularly among the larger players, is this something you want to look at, notwithstanding that you always maintain a very good capital discipline. How is your appetite if M&A were to become more active in the shorter term, although I would think ideally you prefer that to happen later on? André Covre: Well, we see the potential arrival of foreign companies in Brazil, on balance positive, creating a parallel what we had in the fuel markets, we do have today one major foreign company but we had in the past others. And we believe that that will foster a healthy competitive environment with reduction/decrease [ph] of informalities. You are correct that in terms of M&A activities for us this year is not a priority, but we are actively monitoring anything that is happening in the market, and we will get involved with the typical financial discipline, as you mentioned, if is necessary and/or attractive. Christian Audi – Banco Santander: Thanks. And the second question that I am looking broadly at all your businesses is, as you look at the second half of the year, correct me if I’m wrong, both from a seasonality point of view, it should be a stronger half, but also from a number of holidays or fewer days. If you look at the second half of 2014 versus ‘13, should we have a more attractive dynamic in this respect as well? André Covre: You’re right that typically the second half of the year has a bigger portion of EBITDA and profits of the year than the first half. And we don’t expect that to be different this year. I only highlight that in the case of Oxiteno, the exchange rate is moving in the exact opposite over last year. We had a significant devaluation during the third quarter and we’re more or less stable, so that will affect the comparison for Oxiteno. But other than this, you are correct that the second half of the year carries a bigger portion of EBITDA and profits because of seasonality. Christian Audi – Banco Santander: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Please hold again while we poll for questions. As there are no further questions, this concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. André Covre for any closing remarks. André Covre: I’d like to thank you for presence again. We’re pleased to publish the result in line with our expectations from a quarter that was anticipated to have certain one-off events that is now behind us and the trends in the businesses that we have are more clearly visible in the third quarter. So we look forward to being with you again with the results in line with expectations we gave. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today’s Ultrapar’s 2Q14 results conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time.