Marel hf
AEX:MAREL
Marel hf
In the heart of Iceland, where the dynamic contrasts of fire and ice draw upon a legacy of innovation, Marel hf has emerged as a leading force in advancing food processing technology. Founded in 1983, this company quickly expanded beyond its modest beginnings, driven by an unwavering commitment to enhance food production efficiency and quality. Marel specializes in developing sophisticated equipment, systems, and software that are tailored to meet the diverse needs of the food processing industry. From poultry, meat, and fish to dairy and prepared foods, Marel's solutions seamlessly integrate automation, robotics, and data analytics to streamline operations, reduce waste, and ensure top-tier product consistency.
Marel's business model revolves around an integrated approach that combines equipment sales with service and maintenance, software solutions, and aftermarket offerings, ensuring a steady stream of revenue. By understanding the nuances of food production processes, Marel develops cutting-edge technology that not only boosts productivity but also minimizes labor costs and enhances food safety—a crucial demand in today's market. The company’s comprehensive service extends from installation and training to maintenance and upgrades, enabling clients to optimize their output and efficiency continuously. Through strategic acquisitions and partnerships, Marel has broadened its reach globally, solidifying its reputation as an indispensable partner for businesses aiming to capitalize on technological advancements to remain competitive in an ever-evolving industry.
Earnings Calls
In Q1 2025, Verde AgriTech reported a significant 44% drop in both sales volume and revenue compared to the previous year, amounting to 48,000 tons. However, operational efficiencies led to a gross margin improvement from 51% to 56%. The company is optimistic about future growth, anticipating increased order approvals and a possible return to profitability in the coming quarters. Following a substantial debt restructuring, Verde has reduced its near-term payment obligations from $32 million to almost zero. With plans to regain market share, capturing just 4% of the Brazilian market could pave the way for production expansion.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another conference call to present the results -- Financial Results and revision of progress for the First Quarter of 2025. My name is Cristiano Veloso. I'm the Founder and CEO of Verde AgriTech. Thank you very much. If you're attending this conference now live, thanks for allocating your time to be here. You will have an opportunity to be asking questions live, and we will be delighted to be answering those questions. If you're watching it on YouTube, please feel free to send us any questions, any comments you may have as well.
And as always, if you like the content, if you're excited about what we're building here at Verde AgriTech despite of the very challenging last couple of years to say least, please click the Like and share this among all the investors or the people who might be interested in what we do. So we will start the presentation now. I will be taking you through the initial slides and then later on, Felipe Paolucci, our Chief Financial Officer, will be going into more details in the financials and our results.
Next slide. Before I begin, I would like to remind you that our presentation today contains forward-looking statements. You should review very carefully all of our disclosures and making sure you agree with them. As always, if you are in the U.S., you have the unique opportunity to join thousands of the farmers and gardeners who were able to purchase, try and benefit from our products. You can go online on amazon.com and read all of the reviews we've received so far as well as leave your very own review once you've tested our product, Super Greensand.
The next slide, we will start with a market overview, which isn't very exciting, unfortunately. So we continue to experience very high interest rates in Brazil. There is an expectation that at some point, the Brazilian Central Bank will start a cycle of lowering interest rates. There's some speculation that as we start talking about presidential elections, there will be a stronger pressure from the current President for the President of the Central Bank to start cutting rates. And hopefully, this will start sooner rather than later.
The exchange rate between Brazilian currency and both the Canadian dollar and the U.S. dollars, there was an accelerated devaluation of the Brazilian currency that started mid-2024, but more recently, especially against the U.S. dollars after Trump announced its tariff strategy, there has been a weakness of the U.S. dollars against the Brazilian real, which at one time was worth about 650. It has come down now to about 560. For us, the weaker the Brazilian currency is against the U.S. dollars, the better it is because the more money Brazilian farmers will be making because everything they sell is priced in U.S. dollars, all of their commodities.
Next slide, please. We can see here the price of KCl from the good old days back in 2022 when we had the suspension of exports via the ports in Lithuania from Belarusian potash, which triggered a significant spike in potash prices, but that unfortunately was followed by a very rapid decrease in potash prices as other logistical venues were developed, identified and we had record levels of potash hitting the market combined with a significant decrease in the price of all of the key agricultural commodities.
Next slide. But not everything is bad news. What we are seeing, and I wish this graph went a little bit further to the second half of '23. What we're seeing here is a recovery in the price of potassium chloride. So this price has gone down in 2023 as low as $250 but has now recovered to about $340. We're hearing about $360 being asked for by certain suppliers. So there is certainly a trajectory of increase for the price of potash, which ultimately, no matter how better we can be against KCl, there's always an alternative for farmers and that ends up dictating the ultimate price farmers are willing to pay for a product because they will always have a replacement with potassium chloride in spite of all the deleterious impact potassium chloride has to soil crops and the environment.
But it's encouraging to see price recovery and farmers feel that. So farmers start what we were used to in the last 2, 3 years, they were used to seeing price of potash coming down. We are back now in a scenario where prices are going up again. We don't think the price will carry on going up much further. We don't see the reasons for that. Most of the analysts don't see the reasons for a strong acceleration of potash prices unless, as we've always mentioned, as we've always spoken about, as we spent too much time talking about, unless Putin decides to weaponize fertilizers the same way China has decided to weaponize the supply of rare earths. People freak out nowadays because of rare earths, it's just because they don't understand how Vladimir Putin rules the world by controlling the supply of potash.
No other commodity is as tightly controlled as potash is with Vladimir Putin. No other commodity will dictate how much you will -- how much weight you will put other than potassium chloride, not even Ozempic. So yes, that narrative, of course, was quite active in the market when there was the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine war, but then people completely moved on and forget about it, but this is a reality. And because this is a reality, potash was included as a critical mineral by the current administration in the U.S., critical minerals list.
Next slide, we have more bad news. We can see the catastrophic increase in bankruptcies in the Brazilian agricultural sector. Prior to this call, we're talking to a lawyer who was just sharing with us how some of the banks have organized themselves to try to alert for how there is an industry at the moment of lawyers and other firms advising farmers of the benefits of filing for insolvency protection rather than paying their bills on time. And of course, we are suffering from that.
So we've seen record levels of insolvency. And we've been trying to operate as conservative as possible in the last couple of years. So it's not about selling as much as we wish we could because there isn't a certainty that we will get paid. We saw in the last couple of years, some companies growing significantly only now to be facing bankruptcy because they were able to sell a lot, but they're not getting paid. Of course, we're talking about agricultural input suppliers who grew in this crisis and had some phenomenal press releases out temporarily.
However, now they're all filing for bankruptcy and they're all struggling from that. We had the second largest agricultural input supplier in the country, filing for insolvency protection last year. That's a public company that owes us money, called AgroGalaxy. You can read all about it online. And there's another company now, which like AgroGalaxy is backed by private equity was -- is the biggest one in the country, hasn't paid us for a few weeks now, hasn't paid other suppliers. And there's, again, a very strong likelihood that they will be filing for insolvency protection in Brazil and alongside several other farmers.
So this is disastrous. This is very bad and has created a very complex situation for us to operate where we are being very careful about who we sell and who we provide credit to. The advantage of what we see now with our very strong field sales team is that we've been able to hopefully identify farmers who are more likely to pay us back, and that's the importance again of the field sales team or one of the reasons why we had to really switch to a strong field sales presence to try to mitigate the credit risk.
Next slide, please. Results. So now let's allow Felipe Paolucci, our Chief Financial Officer, to go over the results. But let me start with this one, Felipe, because I just gave bad news. So I feel like I should give some good news, and then I'll let you go with the bad news. So the good news is that our credit team and our field sales team working together collaboratively. For this year, they are being able to approve much more orders than they were able to approve in the last couple of years.
As a consequence, we are seeing an increase in orders. So when we compare the approved and delivered orders, so far, we can see a significant growth. Likewise, when we compare just the orders we've received up to this point versus orders we had confirmed -- when I talk about orders, those are confirmed orders, we can equally see a significant growth. And we hope we will carry on accelerating throughout the end of the year.
Next slide, please. Yes, Felipe, you can take over now. You can deliver all of the bad news, although in all fairness, there are some phenomenal news here and which I might step in again once you get to them. Please go ahead, Felipe.
Thank you, Cristiano. Thank you, everyone, for joining the conference. As Cristiano has already introduced me, I'm Felipe Paolucci, CFO of the group, and I start here to present our Q1 financial results. And first, I will start with the key highlights that you can see that sales volume in Q1 2025 was 48,000 tons, a 44% reduction compared to Q1 2024. In addition, we had a revenue reduction in 44% that compared to the prior period in 2024.
In terms of cash held by the company, we had a decrease by $0.7 million from $3.2 million to $2.5 million in Q1 2025. Additionally, the company has $7.7 million in short-term receivables, which means that the next 12 months satisfactory cash flow needs, we have additional $7.7 to be collected. And then the total cash and short-term receivables are above $10 million on March 31, 2025. General and administrative expenses decreased by 23% from $1.3 million to $1 million in this quarter. This was mainly driven by some actions and initiatives made by the directors here, and we were able to reduce contracts to -- we made some layoff of people as well and adjust the company to stand hold and be prepared for the moment of the company and be ready also to start to grow again from now onwards.
In the end, EBITDA, we had $1.4 million below last year -- was $1.4 million this year compared to $0.7 million last year. In terms of net loss, we had $3.8 million negative compared to $4.8 million loss in Q1 2024, and this was mainly driven by an improvement or reduction in share-based payments that we had in Q1 2025.
Then the key points on financial statements in Q1 2025. You can see the first row here, the price and production cost per ton in terms of gross margin and also we have another chart coming in the next one that demonstrates as well the numbers excluding freight, it's very important to analyze in our business. At the end of the day, I think it's very important to highlight here that we had a loss on -- allowance for expected credit losses, it's called ECL. This was mainly driven by 2022 -- 2023 sales that we've made with like a long-term payment of 11, 12 months. And then after 1 year, we must do this provision. And of course, we started with some hard policies on credit, et cetera, since maybe January 2024 or mid-2023, and we do expect this amount to be lower quarter-by-quarter, that's our expectation. And then we can see that in the end, as I said before, we had a decrease on EBITDA from $67,000 negative to $1.4 million in this year.
In terms of operational summary per ton, we can see here that one relevant part to be disclosed is that our production cost per ton has reduced. We had some initiatives as well as a reduction in operational expenses, reduced some contracts with third party and also had here some benefit as well related to exchange rate. At the end of the day, we had an improvement on cost of over 20% year-on-year basis, which compensated the revenue in part.
So you can see that in the second table here, the gross margin increasing from 51% to 56%, excluding freight. This means that once the company starts to grow again, we will be able to improve even more our costs due to fixed cost dilution and also improve gross margin and other indicators. So we are very optimistic when the volume comes, we are ready to deliver without investments. We have everything ready to grow. So it's what we are waiting, expecting for the coming quarters, an improvement in gross margin and profitability since also SG&A will be highly diluted in a growth scenario.
General -- sales and general and administrative expenses, as I mentioned, we had an improvement of over 22%. I can say as well on IT, for example, in software, we had a very good renegotiation with our companies that work with us, SAP or Salesforce reduced the number of license since we reduced headcounts that are using it. So in the end of the day, it is supporting us to have these reductions. In parallel as well, we've reviewed contract with third parties and consultants and other types of alternatives that could be able to try to mitigate a bit the loss on sales and volume.
In terms of debt overview, I think that's a very good news. We had a press release issued like one month ago when we had our debt renegotiated agreement approved. So this is a very, very good news in terms of cash flow to the company for the coming periods. As you can see in the right side, for example, this chart, you can see the amount that we would have to pay in this agreement in the next 12 months that had a decrease from $32 million to close to 0. So this will enable us to keep investing in commercial, keep investing in sales and then bring the company back to a growth cycle. In the end of the day, we were able to restructure nearly 100% of our debt with over 10 years of payment terms.
And the one very important point as well is that only 10% of the debt will be paid in the first 3 years. We're going to say, for example, in the first 12 months after April next year, we're going to pay, for example, only 2.5% of the principal. And the other point on the other hand as well, we have an interest reduction from 18.1% to 16% per year, even with Brazil with a higher SELIC rate, as Cristiano said before and currently is at 14.75%, we are able to reduce this interest rate.
So currently, the plan we have the government rate, which is called CDI plus 1.25%, which is a very competitive rate for a kind of loan. Normally, the banks get money with this amount. So it means that they have no space for a spread here. So I don't think that we'll be able to have such a good interest rate, although it's still very high, but compared to the other companies in the marketplace, I think we are in a very good position.
Also in addition, we added some creditors that did not adhere to the plan which represents over 5% of the total debt, and they faced a 75% reduction in principal, which brings to us immediately affecting our impact on reduction on debt over $1.7 million. The grace period on these situations are higher, are 18 months since the plan was initiated. And also one very important point here is that the interest rate for these newly added creditors are not the other ones that I mentioned before, but the one called TR, which is currently less than 1% per year on these situations, then we're going to pay in 10 years with almost none on interest rate. So that's a very good news as well that provides us some cash flow. We are able to provide what our commercial area needs in terms of payment terms, 3 months, 6 months or 12 months, depends on price, of course. But the financial area here is ready to provide what commercial area needs to sell and make our volumes grow again. So these are the key points, Cristiano. I think now I can go to the section on Q and answers and needed support.
Thank you very much, Felipe. So we have several questions here. If -- throughout the Q&A, if you think about any other questions, just please share it or if you feel that I didn't properly answer the question, please go back and ask me to do a better job.
The first question is an easy one. What is Verde's forecast for return to profitability? What quarter of what year?
It's an easy one because the short answer is I don't know. I don't know. But everything within our control is being done the best we can so we can get back to profitability and growth as fast as possible. And I think the content from the press release shows some bullishness in terms of the orders and how there is a very positive momentum at the moment, both in an increase in approved orders by our credit team, but also with a substantial reduction on G&A of over 20% in comparison to last year.
Next question. Can you explain high staff turnover in recent years? Very often staff leaving after short periods with the company. And with each new hire, we promise the next superstar, but nothing manifests in sales. Staff turnover is a significant red flag for a company, indicating potential problems with management, company culture or employee satisfaction.
I would completely disagree with your statement. I think and you will see several of the very successful companies with a fire-fast culture. So the worst thing a company, an organization, a team can be is afraid to fire someone once you realize there was a mistake made in the hire process or for other reasons, you can reduce staff to cut costs. So answering your question here more specifically, we have done a lot of cost reduction. So we -- as part of this cost reduction, we reduced. And as we use AI, we are being able to cut even further costs. And I expect this to be constant as a fellow Brazilian who puts together a few very successful companies like to say, costs are like nails, you need to be cutting all the time.
And with AI and improved efficiency from different systems, you have several opportunities and you just can't be afraid to go ahead and cut costs. The other point your question brings here, which is important, is, yes, we have promoted some people in the past, and we had big hopes. But unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be as good as we expected. So we are not afraid just because we put a press release or we were able to say a good few words about someone in the past. We don't allow that to hold us back and make the best decision for the business, which in a lot of situations is just to let people go.
There's a book I read over 20 years ago from someone who isn't as popular nowadays, Jack Welch from GE, where he says that in his career, he has never regretted firing someone too soon. So if we have fellow people on this call and watching YouTube who want a little bit of management guidance from Jack Welch, has never regretted firing someone too soon. And I completely -- I can think of several times when I made the mistake of waiting.
And another interesting book I recommend reading is No Rule Rules about Netflix, where they have an interesting take on that, which is as soon as they find that someone doesn't really fit with the organization, they feel like they have an obligation towards that person to let them go as soon as possible because they feel a bit like it's unfair to the person -- to allow the person to continue in the company when you already know this isn't the right fit. You just give an opportunity to this person to find happiness elsewhere as soon as possible.
Next question. Why can we do not capture market share domestically in Brazil when international competitors can?
This is really concerning. We're talking -- let's just pause here. We -- if you leave aside the last couple of years, where we have this massive crisis going on, where we have 2 of the largest companies going bankrupt, those big agriculture inputs because of all of that is going on. But if you look at our track record in growth, it's just phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal how fast we were growing in what we could say was a normal business. The last couple of years, it's a completely different situation. We are hoping that the second half of this year will be a -- we're going to resume what is a normal market, and we will go back to that growth. So I also don't think that is entirely true, that statement.
From Q1 statement of a competitor, this quarter's performance demonstrates ability to navigate market uncertainties while capitalizing on stronger global demand, particularly in Brazil.
Yes, they are selling to the guys who are filing for bankruptcy. So we could be doing the same. We could be doing the same. We would just be hurting as much as those other companies do. So I suggest you go back now and read the last press releases from the companies going under, AgroGalaxy and very soon another massive company listed in the New York Stock Exchange who hasn't paid us for a few weeks and hasn't paid most of the market as well.
Q1 results demonstrated a significant improvement in net income particularly towards global markets, particularly Brazil to offset challenge in North America.
It's the same thing. There's no dispute. There's product moving. It's about what is getting paid. And I won't be surprised, mark my words, if whichever company you read, you took this from, we will very soon be putting out in their press releases about how insolvency in Brazil is hurting their business. Only that we're a little bit more blunt than most.
Can you update us on EWR, enhanced rock weathering, ERW, I presume.
In the last call, I went through in detail what was going on. I will do it again. ERW is a very exciting new science, enhanced rock weathering, where scientists are looking at different rocks and their capability of capturing carbon as they weather. If you look, for example, the big Elon Musk Foundation prize, which we participated and we were one of the top 100 applications. The company that won first place is an ERW company developing a software to accelerate what is currently the biggest issue with ERW, which is quantifying exactly how much carbon is being captured so you can issue reliable carbon credit certificates. It's something we've been navigating, something the science is evolving really well.
It's something we have probably the best-informed scientists in the world helping us. We've been doing some long-term trials, and it's something we're very excited about. It's no secret that we are recruiting for a very senior position in ERW, which when you look at the long-term trials we've been doing, it probably means it's something that is happening there. Most people can put 2 and 2 together, and it's something we're very exciting. It's something we're very exciting, and we hope very soon to be able to update the market with not speculative but something very, very, very material.
Next one. Why the prolonged holdup in delivering Oby share to investors? This should have been sorted by now, as mentioned in last investor call.
This for context, Verde AgriTech had some rare earths assets that it divested via a capital reduction to an Australian company. That Australian company subsequently merged with an Australian SPAC raising $1 million to carry on the development of those very exciting rare earth assets. Throughout this process, Verde AgriTech -- anyone who was a shareholder in Verde AgriTech on the 27th of January, which was the record date, will be getting shares in the new entity. The new entity, which is the merged entity, the Australian SPAC, will be renamed Oby. At the moment, the SPAC is called Nautica, is getting renamed Oby.
And the -- answering now after I've given context, the prolonged hold up, it's an administrative nightmare dealing with both the registrars in Australia and the registrars in Canada. In Canada, you have something called CDS, which is the Canadian depository system. So when we look at our shareholders' list, we don't know who our shareholders are because you guys or most people, they file something when they open their brokerage accounts where they don't allow the broker to tell the company that they are a shareholder.
So when we look at the shareholders' list, what comes up under the first layer that shows up is that CDS, the Canadian depository system owns 99% of the company. Then via our registrar, which is TMX, which is the Toronto Stock Exchange, you can get some capillarities, but it just goes as far down as looking at which brokers hold shares. So we can have a list of the brokers holding shares. So the advice was given to us by TMX that owns TSX was to issue shares in this new entity, Nautica, to the brokers, which is what we did.
Then CDS should have done a communication directly to the brokers, which they didn't do because they didn't get the ISIN, which is a code every security should have for the Australian shell company. The Australian shell company had to apply for an ISIN, which isn't something required for companies at that stage in Australia. So they had to do that application, which was done. Now there is an ISIN code. And right now, we have TMX talking to CDS, so they hopefully very soon can do this internal reallocation. But do not worry, you have the shares if you were a shareholder on the 27th of January. It's a private company, so you can't sell this company, but do I appreciate people who just want to be able to have them, and we're working to get that done.
Next question. I've been invested in Verde since 2019, but I am getting increasingly more worried. Please comment on going concern of Verde.
I think the first comment I have here, we've been going on for -- since 2004 and 15 years -- throughout the 15 years before you became a shareholder in 2019, we went through some much worse markets and situations than we are now. So it's not the first storm we are navigating. And I'm pretty sure it won't be the last one. I'm pretty confident on us as a going concern and carry on with your question, every quarter is more concerning than the last since 2022, while other fertilizer companies with Brazil footprint are doing relatively much better.
That's, as I've explained, we have the insolvency for the country's 2 largest agricultural input suppliers, Lavoro and AgroGalaxy. I might have already given some information to anyone who was interested in looking at the stock of a New York stock-listed company called Lavoro, but that is the reality. The next -- there isn't -- don't talk to anyone in Brazil who is selling and getting paid for what they're selling that they're excited. If you find someone, if you come across, please let me talk to them. Please let me talk because I haven't found them yet in the crop nutrition space.
General and admin expenses up 123% and now above the Q3, definitely attesting to the dramatic turnover turmoil.
That's also not correct. I mean our G&A has come down significantly. What went up as a result of the insolvency crisis in Brazil or it's the amount of money that's owed to us, so you should go back, have a look at the financial statements. The amount of money owed to us has gone up, and that is what had a negative impact, and that's getting reported separately. So there is a reduction in G&A because as I mentioned before, we're also not afraid of firing people.
The other one, delivery as a percentage of sales up to 39%, making less than delivering further for every ton sold.
Not necessarily. Delivery as a percentage of sales up to 39%. I didn't understand the comment here, but most of all, sales currently are taking place much closer to the mine because that's where the field sales team is.
Even if you exclude a sizable credit loss, Verde still lost $19 on every ton sold, debt equity up significantly.
So those 2 points are very valid you're bringing here. The reason we're selling -- we are losing money on every ton, it's nothing to do about the underlying business, the underlying sales business. It's about all your added costs and added burden of being a public company, paying expensive legal costs, audit costs and several other costs, which a private company wouldn't have. And that is what adds the big added burden in terms of cost. If you look at the business itself of the underlying operating company, it's a different situation. Debt equity up, yes, that is something that no one can deny. What you should look at is the significant debt renegotiation we were able to accomplish with our creditors.
I've heard from an investor that he did not believe. And that's an investor very, very experienced with debt, companies raise debt and given his previous life, and he said he just could not believe what we were able to squeeze out of creditors in this renegotiation without filing for a full-on insolvency protection, which is what a lot of the other companies are doing. So it is quite positive. And I will tell you, there's more. There's more to come. We're working on more. And it's my expectation we should be able to improve terms at some point even more.
Next question. Can you explain the counterintuitive strategy of building a sales marketing team to improve the sales mix by pitching more premium specialty products during a time when producers are highly price sensitive, lack access to capital and have low credit worthiness?
That's a very good question. And the background of this question is that usually, when you talk about premium specialty products, usually, companies look to charge a massive premium above on that -- on those technologies, which don't always translates into better yields for farmers. In our case, because how those other products are structured, we can actually keep costs flat or even reduce costs for farmers and allow them to buy what we're calling here specialty products.
So for example, when you look at sulfur, okay, which is a very important secondary micronutrient farmers buy, they will buy sulfur conventionally from something called -- from a granulated sulfur source or they will buy that sulfur from super sulfur phosphate or they can get that sulfur from us micronized. The nutrient they're getting is always the same. It's always best. But because we can buy our sulfur as a residue from the oil from oil refinery, we can access sulfur at a very competitive price.
Our beneficiation, our technology is very cheap. And then it allows us to offer that sulfur for the same price or cheaper depending on the negotiation, but still securing a very significant margin. So perhaps in the last call, when I mentioned the specialty products, I wasn't clear enough. I think this is something quite relevant.
After all those years of very limited BAKS sales success, even when farmers are prospering, isn't it time to accept that high-volume K Forte is sold, so that volume should MOP be within a very tight radius to the mine, is the only way this operation can survive.
That's a very valid point. And by your question here, you obviously understand the market very, very well, which I appreciate and respect. I think when we were selling BAKS before as with an inside sales team, we only had guys operating the phones, trying to sell farmers, telling -- asking farmers to buy those different combinations of products, those different technologies. And we have no one going to the farms, going to meet those farmers and showing to them on the field how they would get better results.
So we have 2 problems. First, it's harder for guys to sell specialty products like those over the phone, where there's a premium element to it. There's a distinction to the conventional commodities. But also once you sell, it's also very difficult for you unless you're there in the field, demonstrating the benefits, it's very difficult for you to be able to show to the farmer the actual gains he was able to accomplish. With now our field sales team, with our customer success team, I hope this is changing. We can already see some evidence that this is changing. And I think we will really know this for sure, I would say, next year, once we've given our field sales, our customer success team at least one cycle to prove their worth.
Next question. Please elaborate on the extent of your ERW program. All we know is you have an LCA and one scientist. How much if any MRV equipment has been deployed? Does Verde have any field analysts or lab technicians? Does the ERW community take the project seriously and in lead with InPlanet and others that have gone credibility?
Phenomenal question. Let's unpack this sentence by sentence. Please elaborate on the extent of your ERW program. We have the key scientists developing -- helping us with that. So there is a well-structured ERW program with a very well-structured MRV program. The difference, which you point out here or you alluded to, which is very true is that a lot of -- and that's where we are weaker than other companies is in 2 ways. The first one, all those other companies, you can read in the media, they are working with the same rock, which is basalt, which is the rock that was originally studied back several years ago when people started looking at ERW before David Manning came and approached us, as you all know, 2 or 3 years ago.
So they're dealing with a rock that is well known, it's well used and well studied and consolidated in terms of how much and when it's capturing carbon. So they don't need, which is our case, they don't need to show the same level of scrutiny and results of a new rock, which is what we are proposing with glauconite. So that's point number one. Point number two is we're talking about dedicated companies. So when you look at the work UNDO, Terradot, InPlanet, Lithos and others, we're talking about start-ups, put together by some very smart people that have raised a lot of private money, a lot of private money from a lot of investors, some of those investors, very smart people, and they have big budgets.
So they went out and hired a bunch of people. So you have companies with 50 scientists working on ERW. So that is something we indeed have a massive weakness in comparison to them. They have way more people in there, way more people talking about it. And they have the big advantage of focus, focus, focus. So the CEO, everyone in the team, that's the only thing they think about is ERW, developing the market. So that's a challenge, that's a weakness we have and something perhaps we might be able to address in a very interesting way in the -- at some point in the future. Think about this, especially if we can show those good results, we're talking about the possibility and the hope of getting those results out of ERW.
The advantage we have with our one scientist is that even though all of those other companies have several scientists working for them, the one scientist who is indeed helping us is the one who's really driving the certification process and behind it and working along to make this concrete. So we have this edge and that's with a very limited budget in comparison to what those other companies are spending in ERW. We're trying to advance it as best as we can.
The other massive advantage we have against the other companies is the fact we are an operating company. So we have a mind that we only control our own resources. We control, we understand the mineralogical characteristics of our ore body far better than those other companies. So what -- some of those companies are mentioning the problems they are facing is the -- how homogeneous their basalt is. So there have been some papers which were showing that some types of basalt weren't capturing carbon or weren't capturing enough carbon.
And that was a little bit of a big issue for the industry, for the space and they're trying to resolve it, and that's an advantage we have. And that's something funny enough. Dave Manning, the pioneer on ERW had already called as a big weakness to the space 3 years ago when he approached us and said, "Hey, guys, what you have is different. You have the control, you have the mine, you operate, you know what you have, you know how much you have, you can control the quality." And this is something very exciting. So I hope I managed to answer your question here. So if not, please go back and ask for any further clarification.
Next one. Have you had any success developing a specialty product that directly competes with DAP, MAP, which offers far better economics than MOP?
That's a very technical question here, and I will unpack it for everyone. So di ammonium or ammonium phosphate is a source of phosphate very used in the Northern Hemisphere, temper climate. In Brazil, MAP is the main source of phosphate used, very concentrated at 54%, P2O5, about 10% to 14% nitrogen. It's a source of phosphate. So it's a source of phosphate. What we're doing here is a source of potash, not a source of phosphate. So we don't have in the mine, we don't have a phosphate there.
What is relevant to mention is some very exciting agronomic trials, and it's a product we have called Ussu where we combine our rock, where we combine our product with MAP. And I won't get into detail because it's another 5 minutes here of a very exciting agronomic talk. We can have a product that is a highly, highly, highly efficient source of phosphate, and we're seeing some phenomenal yields and something I'm pushing the team hard to make sure we set as many trials with farmers as possible. If you're interested in this one, ask the question again and at the end, I can go back to it.
A few questions about the grace period for the adherent creditors. What is the start date of the 18 -- Felipe, I can see you turn your camera on. So you're probably keen to answer this question. So go ahead. Go ahead for each one of the questions.
Yes. Question is what's the start date of the 18 months grace period. The start date is the date that submit the plan, which was last September. So the big part, let's say, or the relevant part of the interest rate starts to be paid after April 2026. m.
Then you asked, although interest is suspended during the grace period, is interest is still accumulating during the grace period?
The answer is yes, it's still accumulating. The difference between the BRL 100,000 and the full amount of interest is accumulating to the main debt. And so what interest rate, this is an important part of the renegotiation. We do not have the old contracts anymore. We used to have maybe 15 or 18 contracts with banks. And now they all became just one contract, which has the new approved condition, as I mentioned before. So we have one contract for the -- I mean we do not sign one contract with the creditor, but at the end of the day, we have the numbers of one contract of the adherent creditors and like one situation or contract with the non-adherent.
So the answer is we are using the amount of interest rates negotiated in the plan. And then -- which is like the government rate plus 1.25% per year, which I said before, it's a very competitive price. We do not find it easy in the marketplace. And also this accumulated interest be capitalized, yes, since we are not paying the interest rate, it's going to be included in the principal debt and then we have to pay, of course, at the end of the day, a bit more of interest. But the good part of it is that we are protecting our cash flow for the coming 12 months of '24, '26 and making us grow in terms of cash.
Thank you, Felipe. Next one. Are the challenges with the ERW program really just about the ongoing adjustment to industry protocols or more about Verde not being able to afford a qualified CSO along with equipment and staff required to design a robust and scalable program?
I think as I said earlier, it's a different rock. So it's not basalt. So we're having -- and we have undertaken and we have gone through now the -- both the mesocosm and the field trial for you to create enough evidence, to create enough data in order to be able to measure the amount of carbon.
How can you say the reason Verde cannot advance, is because of all the protocol standard changed when so many ERW peers were closing lucrative deals in order to scale their operations?
The deals in terms of carbon credit sales, the other companies did, those weren't deals done in a recognized carbon credit exchange like Tero or Verra. Those were direct sales to guys like Frontier or Microsoft. They were able to do that with them because they were dealing with a commodity, i.e., basalt, well known, well understood. In our case, we had to go through what we did now, which was the further validation work required to be able to present what you mentioned here as being a robust set of data.
Many Brazilian ag input providers are surviving by participating in the barter market to circumvent the capital and liquidity crisis. Why is Verde not pursuing the barter market for a portion of overall sales?
We are. So we are pursuing barter. We try to offer barter several times, we're trying to add the product within barter. It is already some of the sales we do, especially like via distributors, the distributors will buy the product from us and then the distributors themselves will be offering the product as barter. What happens with barter is that usually, the farmer will have to offer as a collateral to a barter operation, the production of whatever commodities you're doing. And in a lot of cases, they will have the farm as well. And the farmer will offer that security to a supplier that can offer all of the agricultural input they will need.
And that's why we access barter much more via some of our distributors than directly because it's not interesting for them to do a barter operation just for the one product. It's better for them to do because of the availability of collateral from the vendors. So when you say here about accessing the barters, it's usually the same companies that are going bankrupt now, like AgroGalaxy, like the other fertilizer blenders that sell everything, nitrogen, phosphate in blended products rather than companies like us that are selling just one-off nutrient.
Market conditions have remained extremely poor for several years, I would say from 2022 onwards. Prior to that, you should -- we were growing very fast, and then we had this massive agricultural crisis. Yet we had sold close to 100,000 tons per quarter. So what exactly has caused the recent 50% decline in quarterly sales volume just the last few quarters.
I think I went through this throughout the presentation.
The time suggests it is extremely high employee turnover beginning in Q3, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Absolutely not. So the big turnover you're talking about, that was mainly cost reduction, admin cost reduction. If you look at the sales marketing team, it's the opposite. We're building the field sales team and the team went -- the number of people increased a lot with not a significant turnover. Not that I'm afraid of turnover, as I said in the beginning, I embrace it. It it's just not factual true what is here.
Next question. How can you justify taking the CEO job at Oby with Verde on financial and operational life support? I've seen in the prior call that you were not going to take that role. It's become alarming that as a leader of a business, you can be so flippant with your assurances. Verde co-owners deserve and demand a fully focused dedicated CEO who's committed to turning around a truly disastrous situation.
And I would like to think I am this person fully committed and fully and franchised in making sure this takes place. I also trust the Board of Directors should be constantly reviewing and making sure from an independent perspective that what I believe to be true is indeed true. Looking at Oby, Oby is a right now, pretty much a dormant company with a strong Board of Directors as well, a very active Chairman, and it's a pre-operational company that even when and if it managed to raise capital, what it will do is to employ a geologist who is going to go there and drill a bunch of drill holes in the first time.
So what I'm trying to say, anything required from a time commitment at Oby is rather simple. And quite honestly, after doing this thing for 20 years, it's not something that takes a lot of brain power to go on about. But I trust again, both Board of Directors to fully independently currently assess the situation. And myself, who is, I believe, the biggest shareholders in both companies will be the very first one to make sure I can step down from either companies whenever this becomes an issue.
Next question. If product was also generally better when compared to potash according to many YouTube videos, then why are previous buyers apparently not loyal repeat customers?
Let's start with the first question. I've covered this before. Sometimes people won't buy back the product because they can get better financial terms elsewhere. For example, if I am struggling financially as a farmer and I have already committed my collaterals to a distributor, I will, to a certain extent, need or end up buying whatever that distributor will be offering me rather than have the flexibility to buy and pick and choose from different players because I don't have any collateral to offer and my credit isn't looking very strong.
So this is an example among several other reasons, why we will lose certain sales even in some cases, from loyal repeat customers. We heard from some of our customers exactly what I described now. But also, there were some loyal repeat customers who came to buy back from us. And when we look at the credit risk, it had deteriorated to a point that we just didn't want to take the risk. The sales team was eager to sell again, and I witnessed some homeric arguments between Felipe and the credit team versus our sales team. And in several situations, we just decided not to sell, given how disastrous, how absolutely disastrous the whole situation with insolvency has been in Brazil in the last couple of years.
Sales peaked back in 2022, and that was only because farmers desperately locked in discounted product with Verde during escalating prices. So the drop-off since then and reported quarterly numbers suggest that farmers really don't find this product compelling or superior to potash even at a discount. Can you point out where such reasoning is wrong?
It will depend. It will depend. It will depend on the farmer. So for a lot of farmers, this is exactly what their reasoning will be. They will look at us and say, "Hey, I can just get KCl. It's something I've already been using, something I can get good credit terms. It's something easier to apply." So yes, for a lot of farmers, a lot of farmers, they will think exactly how you just described. The good news, though, is that there is a lot of farmers who see all the value, who see all the benefits, and they go on our YouTube videos and they talk about everything they're seeing in better yields, in better soil, in healthier soils and more crop protection. And we believe there's plenty of farmers like those ones in Brazil to allow us to, at least in the first stage, allow us to sell 100% of our production capacity at some point.
In our press release, which you just put out, you talk about how much of Brazil's market share we would need to achieve in order to get to 3 million tons per year production.
It's around 4% in a market that has been growing 3% to 4% per year. So it's a tiny, a tiny percentage. That's what you need to keep in mind. It's a tiny percentage of the Brazilian market we need to -- tiny market share we need to capture in order to get to full production and in order to very hopefully very soon be able to come up with the numbers we know we can generate in profitability by increasing our production and diluting our -- all of our fixed costs and start generating. So the presentation available on the website has a good slide showing the -- what the business would look like once we hit that full 3 million tons production capacity. And you can see how between -- from where we are now to that stage, how exciting it all gets. So let's not forget, very tiny market share we need and how as soon as we start diluting those fixed costs, how exciting it all gets, all becomes in terms of returns.
Can you explain this renewed strategy of trying to increase low-carbon special product sales, which is considerably more expensive than K Forte when borrowing costs are so high and BAKS has never been more than around 10%, 12% of sales.
I think I discussed that earlier. We're not increasing cost to farmers. We're just replacing the source of nutrients they are getting. So it's expensive versus K Forte, but for the farmer, it carries nutrients like boron, like sulfur that farmers will be buying no matter what.
Next one. Do you have an approximation of how further credit losses will be this year? Will they be as bad as the 2024 credit losses of $2.3 million?
Felipe, do you want to answer that one? I will go back to -- I will go forward to the next question while you look at this one.
Does the company have any further debt renegotiation options at its disposal once the grace period expires? With each quarterly release, it's looking very likely that Verde will not be able to generate near enough cash just to service the interest on its sizable debt?
The answer is yes. There are absolutely several other options for Verde that we can use. Some of them we're already using. There's a lot of stuff going on, very interesting stuff, very exciting stuff, very exciting stuff. which makes me quite relaxed about the overall situation. I can't say a lot right now at this point, but I haven't been losing my sleep over that at all.
Next question, Felipe. So going back to that, do you have an approximation of how further credit losses will be this year? Will they be as bad as the 2024 credit loss of $2.3 million?
Well, as we see -- so in Q1, we had a worse result than last year. I do expect, as I've mentioned, that Q2 up to Q4 going to be better than last year, especially in Q4 and Q3. But in the end of the day, I'm not able to tell you exactly the number because, for example, we have some clients that should be paying during this year. And if, for example, they get a judicial recovery protection, I must book them as ECL immediately. If you did not have these situations, I would say that it's going to be better than last year. But since I do not know who else or which company might be or farmer might be joining the Chapter 11 or the protection situation, I'm not able to tell you yet. But I would say that I do not expect it all to be worse than last year. The worst-case scenario may be equal or similar.
We're approaching very fast end of the questions. So if you feel like you're not happy with my answer or if you have a follow-up question, now it's a chance. In the last conference call, you mentioned that an update on ERW was imminent. What has happened to that? It's been over a year now since we heard something on the subject. I think we, the shareholders of the company, deserve an update even if there might not be any substantial to report about. I guess many investors believe the carbon credit business is dead for Verde.
As I said, anyone following us on social media has seen we're hiring for a very senior ERW position. We're working on some research papers to be published on what the work we did. We're working on an application for something very, very special, some other possibilities there. My only worry here, guys, is putting an update because we've done that in the past. And then people come and criticize us, "Oh, no, there was nothing there. Why are you just giving this update and there's nothing material. You're just trying to -- what you're trying to do." It's been my life for the last 20 years, no matter what we do, we get criticized about it, which we're fine.
We're used to it by now. It's been 20 years. But I just feel a bit like it's such a material business opportunity. And you have so much money changing hands on ERW, so much excitement on ERW. And when you look at how material it could be even in terms of generating a fully independent ERW company, it's massive. It's absolutely massive. And I think we'll be very diligent on the work we're doing and working with the best anyone could be working with. And we just hope very soon we can come up with something very material to address that. So I apologize for not just giving the update. I hope just by the calls, we're trying to keep people up to date.
That's the last question, unless anyone wants to send another one, at least showing on my screen right now, which is have there been any success in the trials with Bio Revolution?
Yes, we have some very good results with Bio Revolution, and it's something else which again, we put the press release showing how good it is and all the benefits, which if you go on our blog, I guess it's important, our marketing materials, we often put out results and how good everything else, and we have the videos, which is a way for you guys to get a bit closer to the customers. So again, I'm not sure if we should put a full independent press release on Bio Revolution, but it's amazing. It's amazing what it does and how important microbes are for soils, and we'll be looking at different ways to further grow that business.
So I will make sure there's no more questions here. It doesn't look like there's any more questions. So I would like to thank everyone who attended this conference live. I would like to thank you for watching it on YouTube. I would like to thank you even more if you've decided to hit that Like button and share it among everyone who might benefit from today's presentation.
Hasn't been very pleasant or easy 2 years, but I can assure you, it's not the first storm we are weathering since 20 since 2004, when I started the company, we've seen much worse. We've gone through much harder, tougher situations. We made a lot of mistakes, and we learned a lot from them. And we always came out very strong once the crisis was behind us. It's very unfortunate. We are all struggling and suffering from probably the worst agricultural crisis, financial agricultural crisis in Brazil in a generation.
But we would like to think the worst is behind us, and we would like to think and hope we will resume our growth trajectory, which honestly was astounding, astonishing, phenomenal prior to the crisis hitting us. And that's, again, we've learned from the crisis, and I have every reason to believe we're going to come out of it stronger than ever.
Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you very much for your support. Thank you very much for your understanding. We're always eager to learn more from you via your questions. Always makes me think, always gives us some discussion points for the next management meeting in Verde AgriTech. People know every time there's a call like this, I come back for the next management meeting full of different ideas and more questions.
So I appreciate, I appreciate each and every one of those questions you've asked, and you should be absolutely certain that they help us shape our business and the way we think and make us think about different possibilities. So thank you. And if there's anything else you want to share, please send us an e-mail. Look forward to seeing you very soon and hopefully, in a much better market. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.