Grupo Rotoplas SAB de CV

BMV:AGUA

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to Grupo Rotoplas' Results Conference Call. Please note that today's call is being recorded and all participants are currently in listen-only mode to prevent background noise. The host will open the floor for questions later.

Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we currently see it and as such, there may be certain risk and uncertainty associated with such statements. Please refer to our press release for more information on the specific risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, further events or otherwise. Please allow me to remind you that the company issued its earnings press release yesterday after market close. It can be found in the Investors section of its website. Also, the presentation for the call and the webcast link are in the Investors section.

Today's call will be hosted by Mr. Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Mario Romero, former Chief Financial Officer and Board Member; and Mr. Andrés Pliego, incoming Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to the speakers.

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Good morning. Before we begin with today's agenda, I want to express my gratitude to Mario and warmly welcome Andres. Mario, your dedication over the past 30 years of Rotoplas has been remarkable. Your leadership achieved significant milestones from taking us public to issuing our sustainable bond and your commitment to sustainability has left a lasting legacy. Thank you, Mario. We're deeply grateful and look forward to your continued [indiscernible]. Let me repeat, we're really grateful and we look forward to your continued impact on [ us ].

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Thank you, Charlie, and good morning, and good afternoon to those of you in different time zones. I want to sincerely thank Rotoplas and our entire team for an incredible journey over the past 30 years. It's been a privilege to work alongside such brilliant colleagues. Together, we've navigated challenges and celebrate achievements I'm truly proud of. I'm also grateful to our analysts and our investors for their trust and insights. As I continue to serve on the Board, I am pleased to welcome Andrés Pliego. I'm confident he will be an excellent fit and will continue to execute Rotoplas' financial strategy with dedication, keeping us on track towards our long-term vision. Thank you all.

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Thank you, Mario. Let's begin by reviewing the key highlights of the quarter. After covering what happened and the reason behind it, I'll shift our focus to the steps we'll be taking to improve profitability as swiftly as possible.

It was indeed a challenging quarter. Similar to the previous quarters, the harsh economic situation in Argentina impacted our results, primarily due to a drop in sales that has affected our profitability given the fixed cost structure we have in place. However, unlike in the previous quarters, while all other countries showed growth, in Mexico, our main market, we saw a slowdown in product sales due to heavy rains. We faced extremely rain fall, the baddest in over 80 years in some areas, which severely reduced demand for our water storage solutions. We believe this is tied to weather cycles rather than market issues, but we'll monitor these factors closely.

I have no doubt this extreme weather events will continue. We need to be more agile and flexible in demand planning and supply chain management. This way, we can anticipate and adjust our cost to maintain greater stability in our operating results.

Despite these headwinds, our services platform showed strong growth, driven by the expansion of bebbia and the successful launch of bebbia Smart, which has been well received by our customers. Argentina remains one of our greatest challenges. The country's challenging economic environment marked by high inflation and declining consumer purchasing power is impacting both the construction sector and our overall performance. However, there is potential for recovery. Inflation, though still high, is expected to decrease around 65% by 2025 as fiscal and monetary policies take effect.

The World Bank forecast Argentina economy will rebound with 2.6% growth in 2025 driven by improved agricultural exports and structural reforms. Given the current challenges, we already have made a strategic decision to optimize both expense and investments in the coming quarters. Our goal is to maintain a strong financial foundation while positioning ourselves for the next phase of growth. This includes slowing down nonessential investments, prioritizing projects that directly impact margins and implementing targeted cost saving initiatives across our operations. Our strategic priorities are capitalizing on omnichannel and digital capabilities such as the bebbia 3.0 platform and our e-commerce platform for distribution in Mexico -- for distributors in Mexico.

Reversing the decline in EBITDA trends by reducing expenses is our second one. And our third one, focusing on higher operating profit to increase free cash flow generation through working capital optimization and strict capital expenditure control while maintaining stable dividends and reducing leverage.

As part of our ongoing review, we updated our 2024 quarter guidance in response to the current market conditions. With a revision in September, Andres will provide more details on this adjustment shortly. While we have knowledge on the challenges before us, we're optimistic. We're confident that our strategy focus on operational excellence, sustainability and our customer-centric approach will create value in the coming quarters. Our investment in technology digitalization and sustainable infrastructure position us well to seize emerging opportunities. An example might be the national water plan proposed by the new government which aims to address Mexico's water management and distribution challenges with a strong emphasis on efficiency reduction wastewater treatment.

We remain committed to navigating these challenges with Brazilians, always focused on long-term success. Also, sustainability remains a top priority. I'm proud to share that during the quarter, we transitioned to 100% renewable electricity and 2 of our main plants in Monterrey adding to the 2 in Leon, bringing our total to 4 fully renewable powered facilities. We've also improved our corporate sustainability assessment by S&P Ratings placing us among the top 5 globally in our industry. Additionally, with JPMorgan's support, we issued Latin America's first and the world's second SDID report, disclosing our impact in the UN's 2030 SGDs.

Through the Rotogotas de Ayuda campaign, we donated over 1,400 water tanks to drought-affected communities in Mexico. Additionally, Escuelas con Agua program in partnership with Coca-Cola Mexico foundation, the 8 bottlers of the Mexican Coca-Cola industry and Isla Urbana is installing rainwater harvesting systems in schools to provide sustainable water solutions.

Thank you for your attention. And now I'll hand it over to Andres to discuss the financial details. Andres, over to you.

[Andres Pliego, executive]

Thank you, Charlie and Mario, and welcome to everyone joining us today. I am truly excited to embark on this new journey with Rotoplas. I look forward to collaborating closely with you all, investors, analysts and stakeholders, and I hope to connect with each of you individually soon.

To kick it off, and although Charlie has already highlighted the key points, I'd like to recap how things unfolded in the quarter. In a nutshell, the economic recession in Argentina significantly impacted our sales. And unlike the previous quarter, this was not offset by product performance in Mexico due to heavy rains. This combination of demand challenges in both Argentina and Mexico affected our ability to absorb fixed costs and expenses. Additionally, it's important to note that we have been investing in several digital and technological projects this year while contending with rising logistic costs driven by global geopolitical factors.

Finally, the weakness in our operating results was unable to cover our financial costs, leading to a net loss for the quarter. Excluding Argentina, our sales would have grown 4% in the quarter. On a cumulative basis, the group would have achieved an 8% growth rate. With that in mind, I'll quickly go over the key results, focusing primarily on margins as we'll dive into more detail on top line performance in the following slides.

As for margins, we saw a contraction of the gross margin during the quarter due to lower revenue. However, on a year-to-date basis, we still see an increase, thanks to our pricing strategy and strong sales of Tinaco Plus, which significantly boosted our margins during the first half of the year.

For better comparability, we have included a table to analyze the impact of the FX hedging on gross margin. As shown from January to September 2024, the margin was affected by 50 basis points. Our operating margin deteriorated both during the quarter and on a cumulative basis. This was primarily due to sales not meeting expectations, as previously discussed with macroeconomic challenges and climate conditions playing key roles. In addition, logistical costs continued to rise, and we invested significantly in digital initiatives and marketing for bebbia, all of which put further pressure on margins.

Moving on to performance by country. Sales in Mexico grew by 2% during the quarter and 11% year-to-date supported by growth in product sales and strong performance in the Service segment. After record storage sales in the second quarter, driven by drought-related demand, the third quarter saw a shift as heavy rains reduced the need for water tanks and systems. Additionally, the wet season negatively impacted the construction industry, slowing or halting activities, which in turn dampened demand for other water management solutions. EBITDA margins contracted primarily due to higher operating expenses and the softer sales performance in the third quarter.

In Argentina, net sales decreased by 26% in Mexican pesos during the quarter and by 31% year-to-date. This decline is mainly attributed to the ongoing economic recession, which has impacted both sales volumes and pricing. However, in the third quarter, we saw a slight improvement in volumes compared to the second quarter, indicating a slight recovery. Despite these lower sales, combined with dollars expenses continued to put pressure on margins.

In the United States, net sales increased by 1% in Q3 and declined by 10% year-to-date, primarily due to lack of drought conditions and intensified competition. However, cost control measures contributed to the reducing negative EBITDA during the both the quarter and year-to-date. While the EBITDA margin remains in red, it's gradually improving and moving closer to breakeven.

In other countries, net sales rose by 15% in the quarter and 7% year-to-date. In Peru, despite macroeconomic challenges, sales were boosted by strong demand for water heaters during a colder winter. Central America showed a solid growth with Costa Rica and Guatemala performing well across the key categories of storage, water flow and improvement.

In Brazil, water treatment and recycling plants projects continue to expand with growth in bookings and a more diverse client base. The decrease in EBITDA margin for other regions was primarily driven by rising operating costs, particularly in logistics and distribution. Additionally, development of water treatment plant business in Brazil added to the increased expenses -- contributing to the margin contraction.

In terms of products and services performance, the Services segment now represents 8% of our total revenue. Within this area, we have made significant strides. Bebbia has greatly extended its reach, now serving over 127,000 users demonstrating our strong growth in the cost -- in the Consumer Water Solutions sector.

In August, we introduced bebbia Smart, which has received excellent feedback. Customer appreciates having instant access through a mobile app to data under water consumption and the quality of the water their families are consumed. By September, 25% of new subscription in areas where it's available, have opted for this new smart service.

Rieggo, both organically and now also through inorganic growth, has served 160 clients -- 165 clients, sorry, covering approximately 400 hectares of high-value crops. RSA has increased its scale and reach while Acuantia Brazil shows promising growth prospects due to ongoing processes with high likelihood of closing.

Regarding EBITDA margin, it improved both in the quarter and on a cumulative basis.

Moving on to our cash position. As of the end of September, our cash and cash equivalents were MXN [ 650 ] million. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at 2.1x, slightly exceeding our internal limit of 2x. We view this as a temporary level, and we expect it to fall below 2x in the near term. The company remains financially solid and we'll continue to be strategic in both sides of the equation, controlling debt while also focusing on improving profitability.

Our total debt amounts to MXN 4.4 billion, distributed between short term and long term to maintain financial flexibility. Short-term debt stands at MXN 315 million mainly allocated for working capital to efficiently manage day-to-day operations. Long-term debt is MXN 4 billion, which includes the fixed rate sustainable bond. The overall blended cost of debt is 8.8%.

In addition, we optimized our cash conversion cycles by 4 days, and our interest coverage ratio remains above 6x, demonstrating our capacity to meet interest and obligations.

During the first 9 months of the year, our capital investments represented 4.5% of the sales, making a significant 30% increase compared to the same period last year. While with 92% allocated in Mexico, we focus on incorporating new technologies for more sustainable water tank production as well as the construction of a new plant in Ixtapaluca. Additionally, we invested MXN 90 million in bebbia and MXN 29 million in the development of the water treatment and recycling plants.

Our return on invested capital was 10.3%, which is 40% -- sorry, 40 basis points below our cost of capital. While we've increased our investments, our focus in the coming quarters is to enhance NOPAT to regain a positive spread between ROIC and WACC. We remain committed to implementing strategies to enhance profitability and create lasting value for our shareholders.

Finally, as we look ahead to the last quarter of the year, the prolonged economic recession in Argentina recovered more slowly than expected, will continue to impact our performance. Therefore, for the full year, we are estimating revenue growth between flat and 5% decline, EBITDA margin between 14% and 15%, leverage between 2 and 2x, and ROIC estimated to be 100 to 100 basis points below our cost of capital. We are navigating current challenges to position the company for future success. And as Charlie mentioned, our strategic priorities are to reverse the decline in EBITDA trends through expense reduction and focus on higher operating profit to increase free cash flow via strict capital expenditure.

Thank you very much for your time and interest. We can now begin the Q&A session.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Carlos Alcaraz at Apalache research, and it's related to CapEx. So the question is, what percentage of the revenues are you allocating to CapEx next year?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

We'll be taking [indiscernible] to Mario and myself, and I'll start by thank you, Carlos, for joining and your question. On regarding CapEx, we will be dealing CapEx slightly different from what we have been doing in the past. In a sense, we will maintain maintenance CapEx to -- this will be most essential CapEx needed to continue to generate the results we have been generating the results that the market will offer us the opportunity for, but other CapEx will be approved on a month-by-month basis.

So we will be increasing on the threshold to which we will approve CapEx. And so CapEx next year will be decided on a month-by-month basis for all discretionary spending not considered essential. In the essential CapEx, Mario may have a more precise number of maintenance [indiscernible].

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Sure. Let me -- sorry, let me complement the question, Carlos. Thanks for joining this session. Well, I think a good way to visualize the CapEx strategy for next year is on the product side, the strategy will be focusing only in maintenance CapEx. We believe we have a very good platform with a very modern equipment. All the smart transition towards the new water tanks and so on has already been deployed. So our maintenance CapEx for the product division, as Charlie mentioned, is going to be maintenance CapEx. And that should come out around 1.5% to 2% as a percentage of revenues.

For the services business, the strategy there is pay as you grow. Out of the 3 businesses, and this is an opportunity to explain that to you guys is bebbia, each additional unit gives you growth. So the strategy there is, as Charlie was mentioning, is we need to see that growth coming in and leasing CapEx or allocating CapEx to it. The same has happened with water treatment plants. Each additional unit, we will review it, and then we will put or allocated CapEx to it.

As for Rieggo, Rieggo is, say, a CapEx less business. So as for the services side again is a pay as you grow strategy. And for your model, I'd be somewhere around 3% of total company revenues. I think that's a good proxy to model the financials going forward.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Perfect. And Carlos has another question. What is the percentage of progress of Ixtapaluca plant? And what is the total estimated investment for this project?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

So progress-wise, most of that project has been finished. We already started [ patching ] Ixtapaluca. We yet have a transition to make from the previous plant to the new plant. And in terms of investments, I can't share that detail of investments specifically to Ixtapaluca. What I would say that -- what I can share the additional CapEx spend, what was spent in transition into [indiscernible].

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Well, that's a figure we don't disclose because of our strategy and the competition issues, but...

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Let us get back to you, Carlos. Let us figure out where we can share more information and maybe we can share more information on -- out of the additional CapEx maintenance CapEx, how much investing in our products business.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Thank you. So moving on, we have another question from Bernardo Malpica at Santander Asset Management. And this one focuses on EBITDA in Mexico. So the question is, regarding the construction of EBITDA margin in Mexico, of the high investments in digital initiatives, how much of it is expected to be onetime and how much of it will continue the following quarters and for how long? Should there be a significant impact of digital initiatives, investments in 2025 EBITDA margin?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Bernardo, thanks for your question and for your participation today. So around digital and IT investments. We do expect those investments to go down next year, although spend will continue to be higher than previous years, considering that we're taking traditional spending from traditional practices to new practices.

So to call it one way, a department might be automated, where you take a benefit of savings from one department and is allocated to now paying licenses for new solutions that will be OpEx, too. So we implement the digital solution to first help CapEx and then it translates somewhat into OpEx. On CapEx-wise, though, going forward, the investments in the department of IT and digital will go down through the remainder of the year and for next year.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Okay. So now we have Sofia Martin at GBM. Actually, she has 3 questions. I want to read the third one. What should we expect for the coming quarters and years from Argentina.

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

I'd love to have a crystal ball here. Thank you for your question and for participating also, Sofia. It has been highly uncertain in Argentina in what will happen. I do expect that going forward, Argentina will regain economic growth. It has been very challenging. And I would think that some fundamental corrections have been happening in Argentina and that there is more and more certainty that the country will have a successful transition, but there is yet on some key political events to happen to make sure that this will happen -- this transformation will finish happening.

The way we are making decisions around Argentina is in a much more agile way where we are making decisions on a month-on-month basis. As I've been mentioning, how we've been changing our style. On Argentina, for us, is a market where we invested heavily in working capital, to protect the investments we've made over the last 20 years. We have a very strong position in Argentina to serve our customers where our market shares in general have been sustained. But I do expect that working capital will be improved.

So in terms of cash flow, Argentina will perform better, both in terms of volume. I think we are expecting some level of rebound, but we will make the decisions as we get closer to each of the following quarters. We did see a rebound in the last quarter, and we do expect that level to be sustained for this coming quarter. Anyone in management would like to comment?

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Probably, I think Argentina, it's all dependent on the macro level that Charlie just explained. I will just complement saying that the company is in very good shape. We are market leaders in all 3 segments. Installed capacity is to sell 2x what the company is selling right now. So as long as the macro recovers and purchasing power in consumers comes back, the company is well positioned to drive that tailwind.

The question is one, and that is where Charlie mentioned, we would love to have a crystal ball that's going to be a 2025 play or if that's going to take longer as Argentina transition to a different business model as a country.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Thank you for the response. Sofia's second question, when should we expect a breakeven from the Services division?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

You want to take that one, Mario?

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Sure. And Sofia, good morning, and thanks for joining us in today's call. Well, I think Services, you need to -- we need to break around 3 pieces. One is Rieggo is making a profit this year. Then water treatment and recycling, as you know, we have one in Mexico and one in Brazil. Both of them are going to be making money in 2025. And then maybe you say -- it's a tricky question because since the business unit is growing very fast, if we were to stop grow, then it can become profitable tomorrow. But right now, the strategy behind bebbia is to grow as fast as possible until the market stops growing.

And that, from our financial projections, makes -- well, we have to start making a small profit with a high speed of growth around 2026. So I think right now, what you need to see is that the growth and the market is there, and you need to achieve as many as possible subscribers until the market stops growing. And that is what creates a negative EBITDA bebbia given the customer acquisition cost for every single new user.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Thank you. Now for the coming question, I'm going to put together 2 questions. One from Sofia Martin and another one from Martin Lara. They are both was asking about the debt levels. So in that regard, what kind of strategy we have going forward?

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Well, as Andres mentioned at the beginning of the call, it is a transitionary issue that we're looking to get solved in the coming 6 months. The company have some internal levers and cash on items that we are working to realize during the next 2 quarters, and that should bring the debt level below the 2x ceiling that we have conveyed in the past.

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Just commenting on the -- as I mentioned, we do expect EBITDA to grow as a consequence of being more efficient in expenses. So that will change the debt ratio to EBITDA. And then we do expect to reduce investments. So taking the rate of investments down will require less cash, also reducing the need for cash and debt. And so between improving EBITDA and reducing investments with all -- that complements also Mario's answer in how we see this only transitionary for the short term.

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

And then just on that, and probably the question is which are the levers. Basically, there is one on the balance sheet, which is inventories. We are high in inventories, mainly in Argentina because we thought we were going -- the company was going to come back faster. So we are taking a very well-thought steps to bring down inventories in Argentina.

The same happened in Mexico. As mentioned early on, first semester was a heavy drought. Third quarter rains were unusually high and it was the highest rains in the last 40 years. But the company planned for not such a heavy rainy season. So also, we have an inventory issue in Mexico. So inventories are going to be reduced for the remainder of the year, both in Argentina and in Mexico that should release some cash on the balance sheet. And some of the -- we have some assets that are nonproductive assets that we are looking to sell. So those are the levers at the balance sheet on top of what Charlie explained around an EBITDA pick up and as a result of the SG&A and revenue on the first case down and the second one [indiscernible]

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Perfect. So moving on, we have another question from Martin Lara and this one focuses on bebbia. And the question is, how do you see this service segment evolving or revenue the next few quarters? Are there any plans for additional futures and expansions within this platform?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

So we have been making a big investment in evolving the digital platform, which is being launched as a test already and will be launched -- hopefully launched very soon. Going after that, it will be incremental improvements to that plant. We see bebbia on continuing to grow aggressively. It is a business we'll prioritize going forward as it showed strong financial fundamentals and has an impact that is recognized by customers. So that market is growing very aggressively fast. So it is a business to be prioritized and we expect to continue to have growth, and we will be leveraging already high investments that we've made in the past. But going forward, it will be more incremental as compared to the past.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Okay. So next question is from [ Peter Valent ] at BTG. He has 3 questions. I want to start with the first one. Why did the Services segment slow down so much even after the programmatic M&A provided close to 60% to 70% of year-o-year growth in the last 2 quarters?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

On that programmatic comments, please go ahead.

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Good morning. Thanks for joining today. There's one main reason and the bebbia business, because of the heavy droughts got impacted during the quarter with less projects. Now that the rain has already come in, it's starting to pick up. So the Rieggo and the storage business, we are seeking to complement each other. In the drought part, water storage will benefit from it. On the rainy season, the bebbia business unit will benefit from it. And that is mainly the reason why the sequential growth on -- when the service segment slowed down.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

The next question. Welcome, Andres, to the Rotoplas team. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the company. What strategies you hope to bring to the table, and what can we expect under your leadership?

[Andres Pliego, executive]

Thank you, Felipe. Nice to meet you over the conference call. I hope to meet you in person soon. Well, the strategy is clear, right? I don't intend to make big changes to the strategy. I think the company has successfully -- have sustainable profitable growth for the last few decades already. So continue that, right? Continue to work towards more and better water.

In terms of specifics to the sort of the short term, I think being very disciplined in managing the balance sheet, both on the liability side and on the working capital side. Also being very strict with costs and expenses. I think we need to control what we -- what is in our hands, as opposed to the macroeconomic challenges that we're having. I think we can focus on what we can control inside, which is mostly expenses, working capital and capital expenditure.

So I would say it's mostly that, Felipe. And I guess, the company has a lot of potential. The growth in bebbia is significant. The growth in the rest of the Services segment is significant. So we need to capitalize on those investments that we have already made and continue profitable, sustainable growth for the future.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Thank you, Andres. So we have actually received a similar question earlier. But to elaborate further, here's a question from Rodrigo Salazar and touches on EBITDA margins and growth in Mexico, other countries and Argentina. So I'm going to read all the questions. But starting, we already talked to Mexico and Argentina. But he's asking also, can you please clarify the low margins in the other countries? And something about Argentina. Why did Argentina's margin decreased even with quarter-over-quarter sales growth?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

You want to take that one?

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Sure. Thanks, Rodrigo. Thanks for your comment regarding the -- your goodbye for me. Thanks for that. Well, Argentina, what we need to do was to lower prices to increase volume. So that's the reason why you see a pickup in revenue and the slowdown in EBITDA margin. And that was the strategy, to start moving around inventories and starting to pick up the growth in the country. Also in Argentina, what is happening now is, as a country starts to shift to a different business model which is going to be more appreciated, competitiveness as opposed to just a closed economy and growing prices with inflation.

Now the whole countries having issues around how to price things. And you see that not only in our industry but in several industries, distributors doesn't know how to price things because inflation is going down very fast. And that's part of what we're starting to understand how to manage that. We're putting together some price management strategy that were very good in Mexico. That's something we want to translate into Argentina. And I think that will benefit going forward into what we believe is going to be a new era in Argentina. But obviously, right now is we're trying to move around the business with what we have given the macro circumstances.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Okay. So there is a follow-up question by Rodrigo Salazar also. And if you could please explain a bit more by changing the strategy, where we will the main focus will be?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Hello, Rodrigo. Thanks for joining. The strategy doesn't necessarily changes. What will change is how we will manage expenses and investments, considering the current situation of margins. So we will continue to focus on driving growth in the core of the business and mainly in Mexico, where we have been very profitable. We will continue to promote that growth.

As you may remember, we brought to market, and we continue to bring to market new products in a very accelerated way since we started the program. So these new products continue to see interesting growth rates there since we started to bring to the market to really start launching the new products until 2022, mainly, that's when it was more aggressive in terms of launches.

These products are only beginning to become relevant to the point that their growth rate impacts or make cuts for any changes like the one we had in Mexico products in the core of the business. But that is part of the core -- that they will be contributing to the core of the business. That will be one main priority.

Secondly, we are still very positive, as we mentioned, on the opportunity, the potential on services. Most -- I would say, yes, most of the hypothesis on this is around services has continued to prove successful and prove correct. So sometimes, we do have on foreseeing demand variability, but these businesses continue to demonstrate that they provide a product or a service -- sorry, an offer, which is a service that benefits customers where the customers are wanting this as opposed to the traditional solutions. And so we're very excited for our solutions and the opportunity in terms of scale, which is much larger than our products business. We continue to see high potential, and we will continue to prioritize its services.

And thirdly, in the U.S., we will continue to focus in the U.S. as it is a very interesting market, and it offers a very interesting diversification onto the rest of Latin -- to the rest of our markets, which is Latin America. And so I would say these are the 3 main focuses on our strategy going forward. Now the way we will invest in those businesses is what changes on just being a little [ redundant ].

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

May I comment, Charles. When you see the business on the long run and I think this is important for this. If you see the last 10 years, a little bit more than 60% -- around 65% of total CapEx has done in the last 5. So having said that, the company is coming out from a period of -- or a cycle of a lot of CapEx deployment and allocation to make the platform more robust and with greater capacity to grow. So the business strategy on where to focus, it's the same. That is not changing. We are very happy on the industry where the company plays the countries where we are and the product and services portfolio that we have. So I guess, what we're trying to convey is that -- now the company will focus into really making those assets work for bringing in a sustainable growth in the coming years.

And on the services side, it's more pay as you grow, as mentioned, and it's more about technology investments that flows really as expense in our P&L, that has -- most of it has already done as well. So I think the company is very well positioned to take advantage of this high CapEx, high digital cycle that we're coming out and that should position well us over the coming years growth and profitability.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

So thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Mario. Thank you, Andres. That was the last question. Would you like to say something, final comments?

[Carlos Rojas Aboumrad, executive]

Sure. Thank you again, Mario, for his wonderful contributions, his friendship, his unconditional support, all of the history and now going forward.

[Mario Antonio Romero Orozco, executive]

Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure really working here in Rotoplas. I've enjoyed every single day of those 30 years, I'm very happy about where the company is, the industry, how the company has been built and the future of the company that it's going to be great. Thank you again. Thank you, again, all of you guys for listening to my voice and watching my face over the last 10 years. I'll see you soon. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

[Mariana Fernandez, executive]

Thank you, everyone, for your questions. That concludes our Q&A and the webcast. So you may now disconnect, and have a great day. Bye now.