Earnings Labs

Ultrapar Participações S.A. (UGP)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, May 12, 2016

$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 First Quarter 2016 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. Andre Pires, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, together with other executives of Ultrapar. We would like 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 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 Pires. Mr. Pires, please begin your conference.

Andre Pires

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you to discuss Ultrapar's performance in the first quarter of 2016. Here with me to help answering your questions, I have my colleagues from our businesses and Investor Relations team. Starting with slide number 3, I would like to start our presentation by an overview of the quarter which was once again very positive, improved the resilience of our multi-business model even in an increasingly challenging environment. The decline in GDP which has been causing an unemployment rise and net income to decrease while inflation rates remains steadily high, demanded our management team intense dedication to act against the negative effects. In this scenario, Ultrapar’s net revenues amounted to R$20 million in the first quarter of 2016, growing by 12% over the first quarter of '16. Consolidated EBITDA grew by 7% in the same comparison basis to R$1.1 billion. Net earnings remained stable on a year-on-year basis, mainly as a result of higher interest rates and net debt. We maintained our CapEx plan reaching R$292 million in the quarter, concentrating our initiatives towards diversification of our products and services providing greater customer convenience, and satisfaction and increasing our scale. We plan to invest R$1.8 billion this year enforcing our confidence in strengthening the company to projects that are ready to our shareholders. We have been growing EBITDA by 39 quarters in a row on a year-on-year basis. This consistent growth that was followed by a return equity of 19% and the maintenance of a strong balance sheet, a key characteristic that has been present for many years. The net debt to EBITDA ratio remained within its historical levels at 1.5 times. It is important to highlight that due to the seasonality of our businesses, the working capital…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Frank McGann from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead with your question.

Frank McGann

Analyst

Hello good afternoon. Just a couple questions if I could. One, in terms of Ultragaz, the results were quite strong and that's on top of what was a fairly strong quarter in the prior year. I was wondering if you could give, maybe a few more details on the commercial initiatives and how that enables you to get what looks like very, very strong leverage from additional sales. Secondly, with the potential economic recovery at some point, timing I guess, remains to be seen. Where do you think you're going to have the most leverage and how are you preparing for what could be a pick up at some point over the next one to two years.

Andre Pires

Analyst

Hi Frank, thanks for the question. The first one regarding Ultragaz commercial initiatives, I think in many segments I think Ultragaz has been very successful in a way compensating or mitigating a declining market by being able to capture new customers in these segments. If we look at the bottled segment, is basically the focus on opening new resellers or looking for new sellers throughout the country. But more specifically in the bulk segment that has a more - I would say strong correlation with economic activity, Ultragaz has been very successful in penetrating into small and medium businesses which in a way to set for last scenario like that as opposed to let’s say large industrial clients. And even large industrial clients, some innovative applications that Ultragaz has been able to develop kind of created for Ultragaz and new entrants in market that were before eventually only available for natural gas. So some technology that has been implemented as well, there has been in a way allowing Ultragaz to compensate for very weak - let’s say market for the bulk segment. And as for the potential economic recovery and you know like an - is very difficult for us to predict but we believe that the fact that we had a strong balance sheet and the fact that we’re always looking at opportunities, will allow us to be prepare and ready – it's not a question of each of trends the economy starts to look over. And I think pretty much you know segment that we are specifically, segments are linked to the Brazilian GDP. So we can talk about Ipiranga, we talk about Ultragaz which we just mentioned already and Extrafarma as well, segment were linked to the consumption and we believe that we are very well positioned, when the economy starts to recover on those two businesses - on the other businesses as well but those are the ones that have a more, I would say strong correlation with the market consumption. Oxiteno business this correlation but there is other let’s say variables like the foreign exchange rate, like commodity prices, so there are more - I would say more indicators for Oxiteno as opposed to the other three that are more linked to the overall economic activity and Ultracargo as well would benefit from the recovery in the economic activity.

Frank McGann

Analyst

And in terms of demand, are you seeing any changes in terms of the second quarter for a better for worse, are they continuing more or less in the same level in terms of demand in Ipiranga, demand in some of those segments.

Andre Pires

Analyst

They are more or less at the same level, Frank. I think the other expectations I went through start to improve is from now on, when we look at what we’ve been seeing today as compared to the first quarter - compare as well to the fourth quarter of 2015, we are pretty much the same levels.

Frank McGann

Analyst

Okay. And I could just, one more, in terms of Santos, what you're expecting in terms of potential insurance recovery over the next several quarters if any? And when you get to restarting up the facility there, how much incremental volumes would that imply and what will be the comparison of where you expect to be in terms of capacity there versus where you were prior to the fire?

Andre Pires

Analyst

If you look at our balance sheet, there has been an increase in our asset and also increase in our liabilities which pretty much in the same magnitude. I think it’s R$140 for the assets, R$110 in the liabilities which in a way is already a testament of expectation that we have in terms of our obligation or our obligations from now on and expectations that we have regarding the receivables of insurance from now on. So 140 million of, let’s say, assets and 110 million of obligations from here on. So this is something that we expect that it has already been included in our balance sheet. As for, let’s say, the service terminal, once we conclude then we have all the final authorization from - let’s all the authorities, and we start - let’s say remodeling the new building, the portion of terminal that is still interrupted. We believe that we should start operating there by the beginning of 2017. The trend - and then probably we will be with a capacity close to 95% of the capacity that we had before the fire. So there is a portion of this capacity that probably will not come back in line.

Frank McGann

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Andre Natal from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead with your question.

Andre Natal

Analyst · your question.

Hi guys. Thank you for taking our questions again, while you just mentioned about GDP, I just wanted to go back to that bit if I may, a little bit more specific on diesel. We've seen this in the last five years or so prior to 2015, of course, with seeing diesel consumption actually increasing above GDP growth rates instead of the more long historical trend that had been, prior to that GDP actually grew pretty much in line with diesel consumption growth. So of course, this recent increase might have been boosted by in Santos to truck fleet expansion and also boost in agriculture production, especially in the Midwest region where you basically trying to focus now. But looking ahead, I wanted to know, I was wondering how do you guys think about it, when you do your longer-term investment plans and things like this, how do you guys think about the long-term prospects of diesel consumption growing forward assuming the country at some point in the future will resume growth. How do you think about diesel consumption growing, is it, do you expect it to keep it in line with GDP or do you see it a period of accommodation in which basically a diesel could grow lower at lower rate than GDP for a while how do you - how should I think about it. And just connected to this one, there are investments expected to happen in the Midwest region to increase capacity of existing railroads and this might capture a bigger share of transport of crop especially soy and corn towards the southeast ports. So I just wanted to know how do you - if this is something you guys are following very closely and if you have any ability to give us a hint of how relevant this might be to diesel volumes in coming years. And then the other one if I may is concerning the branding strategy that you have in the North, Northeast and Midwest regions. The strategy we've seen, although there is very limited reliable data about the exact number of stations especially for white flags. But with based on what we have, we have basically seen that your sales per service station has actually been decreasing for the last five years a bit. I know this is not a particular objective you have in terms of the volumes per station. But I just wanted to understand if this does result is basically a consequence of your strategy of branding stations that's basically have a lower volume than Ipiranga's average stations in the region and if this might revert at some point in the future when after branding these service stations start to sell more as a consequence of the branding process. Thank you.

Andre Pires

Analyst · your question.

Andre, let me try to address your points here. Starting with diesel, basically we continue to have the conviction that the correlation that we have for diesel volumes related to GDP growth. Obviously you have some specific effects in the short term that normally doesn’t follow the trend, but over the long term this is what we should continue to absorb. We think the first quarter of 2016 we outperformed the market in general, because we don't sell thermal\electric plants and as you know the thermal\electric plants has shut down most of them, they are not operating due to the fact that the demand is relatively low and ideologically has been a very - at least for the short term. But if you exclude those one-off effects, the trend over the future continues to be a correlation towards GDP's growth. As for the branding strategy and if I understood correctly your point, sometimes if you look at the comparison which would be similar to same-store sales you could see eventually some volumes specially more recently dropping, and the reason for that is on the expression of our natural gas like that, when you add a new service station, when you grant some branded service station, you take some time there is ramp up for this volume to start and might grow in towards and more spending level for given. And even when you open a new one, there is a ramp up phase for that. So it is in a way of consequence of expansion strategy that we have been adding. I believe in the more shorter term, there is the impact of the overall economic activity. But the strategy branded service stations remain especially its possible in the Northeast part and Midwest. It's important to remember that if you take – the branded service stations they represent around 25% of the market. So there is few large opportunity for us and for others as well to grow and get this piece of the market.

Andre Natal

Analyst · your question.

Very clear. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's question-and-answer section. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Pires for any closing remarks.

Andre Pires

Analyst

Thank you, thank you everyone. Thanks for participating in the call and I hope to see you all again back during our call for the second quarter of 2016 in August. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's Ultrapar's first quarter 2016 results conference call. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.