Earnings Labs

Ultrapar Participações S.A. (UGP)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 7, 2014

$5.87

+1.21%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.10%

1 Week

-1.59%

1 Month

-6.47%

vs S&P

-6.38%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Ultrapar’s Third Quarter 2014 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 afternoon everyone. It’s again a real pleasure to be here with you, we also have the pleasure today of having Thilo Mannhardt, our CEO with us who will conduct the first part of the presentation. So Thilo please get started.

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

Thank you very much. Unusual but today fully to be explained why I am participating and the speaker in this conference call with you, but before doing so let me thank you for your presence and for the attention. It's an honor to talk to you. As we usually do in the third quarters, we do have -- had this morning a face-to-face meeting in Brazil with our investors. So our presentation is a little bit longer and it's is shared by André and by myself. I will start by presenting our trajectory from the perspectives of strategy, governance growth and value creation which have boosted our businesses along the years and made us such a large company in Brazil. We will also comment on the performance during the quarter and the strategy of each of the businesses and also our expectations for the fourth quarter 2014 and then outlook for 2015. Those all you find on Slide No. 3 which does give you the agenda we will roughly follow. Turning now to Slide No. 5, let me tell you first of all that I like to share with you that one month ago, today October 6, 15 years ago we completed -- we were listed as a public company. This event has made us reflect on our strategy over that period, which I had the privilege of following closely for some years as a partner of Ultrapar in various projects, before actually joining the team and for now almost four years acting as much as a Board member and more recently as its President and CEO. Currently Ultrapar is consolidating itself as one of Brazil’s largest companies with Brazilian businesses and an outstanding position in its areas of activity. We are a multi business company with an effective management…

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

Andre, thank you very much. A couple of last words to the audience and some final considerations. Moving onto Slide No. 21, I'd like to share with you how we can actually look at our perspectives for the next year. What we did on this chart, we divided it into two parts, on the left hand side, bringing more detail to businesses who are now directly influenced by the GDP. On the right hand side, we do list parts where other factors are more determining for the future perspectives of our businesses. Economic performance influences, mainly the diesel segment at Ipiranga, our domestic sales at Oxiteno, the bulk segment at Ultragaz and the handling of chemicals at Ultracargo. Our businesses are also subject to other factors, such as the expansion of the vehicle fleet as related to you before, which is related to sales of fuels for light vehicles at Ipiranga or depending on the evolution of the demography and the ageing of population, which are the main drivers of long-term growth and resilience in the pharmacy sector. If you turn to Slide 22, let me give you a sense of priorities for the coming period. We're looking at expanding the distribution network at the infrastructure of Ipiranga, continuing to focus on the North, North-East and Midwest of the country, which do show growth above national average and have a higher share of unbranded service stations which we can convert. We continue to strengthening the attributes of differentiation in convenience and services at our stations as already related earlier to you by Andre. At Oxiteno, we will continue to maximize the still open benefits of our expansion in production capacity in Brazil. We will continue to focus on segments with higher growth and where added value is possible, boosting this…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. (Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Frank McGann of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Frank McGann – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: A couple of questions. One is in terms of CapEx plans for next year, I'm wondering how you're seeing that now in relation to what's a slower growth environment than perhaps might have been envisioned six months or 12 months ago? And in terms of Ipiranga in 2015, any thoughts on the number of stations that you think you can convert or open and how you see that’s part of the growth now versus what you might have expected a couple of quarters ago?

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

Thilo here. Thank you for your questions. We are in the midst and have continuously to report this to you and the markets of executing our strategies and we have and we’re going to execute also on our CapEx assumptions for 2014. Given the strategies and execution, the accelerated growth plan for Extrafarma in 2015, we are still in the midst of modelling and of thinking about our CapEx levels in the process of our budget discussions, but you can assume that we will stay in the order of magnitude of what is which is Ultra's normal investment in investments magnitude and I think it is especially supported by the next to last chart which I tried to comment and giving us some positive outlook, giving the influential factors on our businesses where only parts of it is by GDP and others are by other factors, which do enable a continuous trajectory for Ultrapar. As to Ipiranga, we are keeping the number this year of stations opening somewhere around the 300 to 400 -- 300 to 350 mark gross and we are looking at the plans for 2015. At this point in time, I don’t envision a major step change down. We are still though looking at what the feasible number is in terms of true opportunities are. Frank McGann – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Okay, are you seeing that at this stage the number of attractive opportunities is going down? So it's less -- it's more and more difficult to find same sort of material growth that you could get?

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

No, even the strategy in the north, northeast and Midwest and the fact that there is still more than 20% of non-branded, we don’t foresee that the opportunities and the range of opportunities will suffer a significant change for next year.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Christian Audi of Santander.

Christian Audi - Santander

Analyst

First of all congratulations on these results. Macroeconomic factors have been tough and it's -- I imagine that you continue to deliver very solid results, I had four questions. The first one more related to the performing business. I was wondering if you could comment a little bit, both the acquisition and divestiture side of things, on the acquisition front, any interest in [indiscernible]. You’ve had a great experience there so far with the energy reform. Is that attractive to you or not necessarily in the short term? On the divestiture side I know you continue to rationalize your businesses. Some of them are smaller in nature. We're just wondering, if -- what your thoughts were in respect to potential lower investments in some of the smaller businesses. The second question, on return on capital employed, what’s the outlook for 2015? You’ve had an amazing track record of improving returns. Can that continue in this more difficult environment in 2015? Third question more specific on Ipiranga. What’s your outlook -- given all that’s happened, weak economy, these price increases for gasoline and diesel on what the mix of product between gasoline, ethanol and diesel it looks like better or worse as you discussed here. And the last, are you giving guidance in terms of EBITDA growth for 2015 or not? And if not, do you think it’s realistic to think so you can grow that double digit? André Covre: Thanks for the questions. At the end of the day there is quite a number them that are focusing on Ipiranga. So let me give you a broad view on Ipiranga. We have had a year that I consider normal, except for one factor. Regional sales have grown very modestly and in small quarters have fallen, given that the economy has…

Christian Audi - Santander

Analyst

And just a quick follow-up on Ipiranga. Your outlook, again given the macro situation, given recent price increases for gasoline and diesel, when we look at the mix of products do you think it could be more attractive mix in 2015 than in 2014 when you look at the breakdown between gasoline, diesel and ethanol? André Covre: I think it's reasonable to expect that prices of ethanol will follow the increase in the prices of gasoline. And therefore that shouldn't result any meaningful change and the mix between gasoline and ethanol. Second, given that the Otto cycle has a very vigilant growth, with the average fleet growing next year probably between 5% and 6% and consensus GDP growth in business currently 1%, we should see Otto cycle growing much faster than diesel sales. And that’s positive because Otto cycle sold basically at the gas stations which is the focus of our strategy and is the most profitable segment of the business. And therefore we should see a better mix in that way as we have seen this year.

Christian Audi - Santander

Analyst

And the fact that ethanol, which carries correct me if I'm a lower than gasoline and diesel, would the potential growth in ethanol cause margins to be a little bit weaker in the cycle Otto or it’s one of the significant enough to have an impact. André Covre: Given that I think the most reasonable expectations that the prices of ethanol will rise together with the price of gasoline announced last night and the relative pricing between the two wouldn’t change and therefore we shouldn’t see disproportional increase in ethanol sales and therefore the average margin of Otto cycle would remain.

Christian Audi - Santander

Analyst

Okay. And on the last point on André and Thilo, so when we look at returns that you've generated on the capital you have employed, you've shown and generated continued improvement on the face of this more challenging 2015 macro scenario. Do you think that, that trend can continue this year or maybe curtail for year and then will have to leave and so what happen in 2016 or it could continue to improve?

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

What I can tell you Christian is that investment's that we're making in new gas stations and converting gas stations have on average a return on capital which is higher than Ipiranga’s current return on capital. And second, once we have brought gas station to our network, and its contract expires, the next investment that we make to renew the contract normally has a higher return. So everything is set for an improvement in returns. Now obviously the returns of the year depends in other things. It depends on the behaviors of margins. It depends on the growth of the volume in the year but structurally we should see growth in returns over the years as we have seen from the last few years.

Christian Audi - Santander

Analyst

Okay. And very last one. When you look at the universe of white flag stations that you could convert, not a difficult question, but can you give us a sense of is 50% of the good ones behind us? Are we 70% done with the really good attractive white flags. Can you try to give us a sense of or quantify how much of the good ones are behind us or in front of us?

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

I think the best way I can help you on that one, Christian is that a few years ago we used to add or we have been adding for a number of years between 300 and 400 gas stations a year and a few years ago, it was about 70% conversions, 30% new-to-the-market gas stations. And in the recent past, it has been more like 60-40. I honestly do not think this is important, because converting a gas station or opening a new one are just different tools to capture market share. As long as we have very good unbranded gas stations, we will convert them but once we have in the market only bad quality gas stations, independent gas stations, then instead of converting those, we've open a brand new gas station nearby and capture volume from them. So this shouldn't be a concern. I've been asked this a few times and there is someone that has an unfounded concern that the market will run out of attractive gas stations to convert. But the once the attractive ones are being run out, the unattractive are still there and it's sufficient to open a gas station, good one close to it to grab volume from it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Andre Sobreira of Credit Suisse.

Andre Sobreira - Credit Suisse

Analyst

I have two questions please. Firstly I would like to understand a little bit more the dynamics in Ipiranga of the non-renewal of a large contract in the diesel side. Was this a very specific event or was this related to the fact that the economy is in a poorer state that the large client switched off to another competitor of yours or did it simply shutdown completely, if that's reasonable to assume. I'd just like to understand a little bit the dynamics behind the large consumer segments in diesel to try to think about it for next year. And the second question -- I would just like to understand if you can help us understand your level of maintenance CapEx per business on a group basis. Thank you.

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

Andre, thank you for your question. The loss of the contract really attached to the eminent joining of ILL and Umo [ph] and that has led to the cancelling of our ILL diesel volume which is -- it's in order of magnitude of 25,000 cubic meters month and this is in my view complete natural to the expected move when Umo [ph] belonging to [indiscernible] is now in negotiations for taking over ILL. So this is not shutting down or anything. It's just the change of ownership reaction which happens to our contract with ILL. On your second question Andre, and without trying to be too precise with orders in magnitude, maintenance CapEx for Ipiranga 100 million, Oxiteno around $60 million to $70 million, so we’re talking under R$70 million, Ultragaz about 150 million, Ultracargo about 30 million and Extrafarma in its current form R$10 million - R$15 million. I guess that gives us 400 million, 600 million, 750 million -- less than 800 million of maintenance CapEx and we have a business that generates currently 3 billion of EBITDA. So let's say tomorrow all markets in which we operate stop growing, zero volume growth, then we could reduce CapEx to around 700 million to 800 million and we’ll be generating more than R$2 billion of cash flow as measured by the down minus on our CapEx.

Operator

Operator

Showing no additional questions. This will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time I would like to turn the floor back to André Covre and Thilo Mannhardt for any closing remarks.

Thilo Mannhardt

Management

So it's been a great pleasure to be able to talk to you and share some of our perspectives, our 15 year journey as a listed company and some of the details of our results evolution in the third quarter, perspectives for the fourth and outlook to 2015. André and I do say thank you. Thank you for being with us, and thank you for the trust that you have expanded on us for many, many years. Have a great weekend. Bye, bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today’s Ultrapar third quarter 2014 results conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time.