Jalles Machado SA

BOVESPA:JALL3

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Jalles conference call to discuss the results of the first quarter of crop year '24/'25. This conference is being recorded and has simultaneous translation into English. The replay will be available in both languages at the company's website at ri.jalles.com. [Operator Instructions] As we have limited time in this conference, any questions that are not addressed during the call will be answered later by the company's Investor Relations team. The earnings release and the presentation on the first quarter of crop year '24/'25 can also be accessed on the company's Investor Relations website and also at the CVM's website.

Before proceeding, I would like to mention that any statements that may be made during the conference related to the company's business prospects are the company's management's expectations about the future of the company. Such expectations are subject to change due to macroeconomic conditions, market risks and other factors.

Today with us is Mr. Rodrigo Penna, CFO and IRO. I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Penna. You may proceed, sir.

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much, Amanda, for the introduction. I would like to thank you all for being here. Thank you for your time. Thank you for taking the time to participate in our earnings call about the first quarter of crop year 2024/'25.

We are going to break the presentation down into 4 parts. We're going to start talking about the market first, then we're going to go over the commercial highlights, the financial highlights and lastly, the production costs. I'll try to be brief. We provided you with more details on the release. But in this call, we want to allow time for you to ask questions.

We are just starting a new crop year, and we started with an agricultural yield that is better. We have 4.7% in TCH, and we would like to highlight the Jalles unit with a 13% increase year-on-year in terms of yield. We still have hedge position for sugar, and we're going to give you more details further down the presentation. We're going to talk about the prices that are above the historical levels to ensure that we have good prices in future years. And the ethanol prices have recovered. 4Q '24 was very bad. We were at BRL 2.4. That was the gross price, and now it's at 8.80 -- BRL 2.80 actually. Our EBITDA came to BRL 243.9 million with a 60% margin. And as we said in our last call, we have been carrying a bit of inventory to sell in the coming quarters.

Now let's talk about the sugar market. This is an update according to DATAGRO as of August 2024. And this is the trade balance, supply and demand for sugar. You can see that we have been at the lowest levels since 2012/2013. And in September 2024, you can see that we were at a deficit of 1.9 million tons. And next year, we should have a surplus of 0.7 million tons. So you can see that the market is balanced. And that's why it has been above the historical levels, and that's also why we have had a long period of prices going up.

Now when it comes to ethanol, and here, we are only talking about this type of ethanol. The other hydrous ethanol lines are very similar from one year to the next. So in this hydrous -- this type of hydrous ethanol, and the data that I'm showing you comes from SCA, and you can see that with a crushing of 615 million tons, we should produce 19.4 million liters of hydrous ethanol between sugarcane and corn. We have produced 6.8 million, sold 6.8 million, and we still have 13.6 million to sell. And we would be 1 million liters short to have the same level that we had last year.

So we still need to decrease consumption. And you can see here that we still need to decrease our monthly sales, and that percentage has decreased a little bit because the mix is now leaning more towards ethanol and not so much sugar. So with a mix that is not leaning so much towards sugar, we would have a little bit more ethanol in the crushing volume of 615 million tons. And you can see here the parity curve, and you can see the numbers for June 2024. You can see the solid bars and the stripes as well. And you can see the new estimates for August 2024 and future sales.

Since we are going to have more supply of ethanol because of what I just mentioned, we are not going to have such a big share of sugar in our mix, differently from what the market had projected. So we need to sell more from now on. And that is why the parity, which was 71%, 72% in January 2024, now those numbers have dropped a little bit because the consumption level won't need to be -- to decrease so much. However, the average price for the crop year in a weighted average for the prices for the crop year, we went from BRL 3.01 to BRL 3.11. And the main reason here is the increase in Petrobras prices for gasoline, but this is the projection that we have so far according to SCA.

Now let's talk about Jalles. This quarter, we had a stable sugar price in line with first quarter 2024, but with lower sold volumes. Now on this chart, you can see that year-on-year, we have produced more in volume, and the price in 1Q '24 was BRL 3. You should remember that 1Q '24 had the best ethanol prices in the year, and the opposite is going to happen this year. Last year, the curve was inverted because of everything that we discussed in our previous calls. So we had a 13.7% decrease year-on-year. And today, the market is about BRL 3.10 to BRL 3.15. It's no longer BRL 2.8. But when we look at 4Q '24, our previous quarter, you can see that the ethanol price went up by 17%, going from 1 -- BRL 2.4 to BRL 2.8. And today, it's actually BRL 3.15.

Now CBIO and sanitizers. For CBIO first, we have not kept CBIOs in inventory because of the uncertainties in the policies, public policies and also default. So differently from the past when it was BRL 30 to BRL 40, we decided to create an inventory of CBIOs instead of selling. But currently, we have been selling all of those, and the average price is BRL 100 in comparison to BRL 130 in 1Q '24.

Now at this point, it's very important. This quarter, although we issued a guidance to the market saying that we are going to have over 50% share of sugar in our mix, and last year, it was 37.5%. However, in the first quarter, only 41% of everything that we sold was sugar in terms of our revenue in comparison with 46% last year. If you look at our release, we only increased the sugar share in our mix by 1 percentage point. And why is that? That happens because Santa Vitória is going to start producing only after the second quarter, I'm talking about the new sugar mill. And Otávio Lage, which also had its mix increased, it had a very low TRS in April and May, which came in the way of our share of sugar in our mix. But now it is at about 60%, just like at the Jalles unit. In Santa Vitória, the plant started running in late June. That's when we had the first production of sugar. And in July, we started ramping up the production at that plant.

So when it comes to the first quarter 2025, the results will be a little bit different than what you're going to see throughout the rest of the crop year because considering our revenues, only 41% of the revenues came from sugar. Now TRS, we sold 51% in comparison with 53% in 1Q '24. And you can see that our inventory in sugar was 30% higher year-on-year.

Now let's talk about the financial highlights. I would like to show you here that although we don't have such a big share of sugar in our revenue and mix in the first quarter 2025, our EBIT and our EBIT margin increased a great deal from 4Q '24. We went from minus BRL 85 million to BRL 69 million, and the margins increased to 16.8%. And in 1Q '24, it was 18%. Our adjusted EBITDA, the margin is pretty much in line with 1Q '24. But since we had lower revenues, then our EBITDA decreased as well.

Our net debt is very stable. We have ethanol inventories because we think prices will go up. And indeed, that's happening so much so that the average price was BRL 2.8, and we decided to sell ethanol in better conditions. And indeed, the prices now are at BRL 3.10 or BRL 3.15 in the state of São Paulo. And the trend right now is for the prices to increase throughout the crop year. Our average term in our debt is 5 years on average.

And now let's talk about our hedge policy. For crop year '24/'25, we have had already 3 months in this crop year. And we have a price that is 28.5% higher year-on-year, coming to BRL 2,528. And here, you can see the amount available for hedge. This is based on our installed capacity for sugar. And 65% is 100% of what we have available to sell in crop year '24/'25. It's not 100% because we have already had 3 months in our crop year. So this should probably be adjusted so that we don't create any confusion. For '25/'26, we have already hedged 84.5% of the available volume. And '26/'27, we have 33%. Since part of '24/'25 is behind us, we already started hedging part of '26/'27 at these prices that you can see here, BRL 2.428 (sic) [ BRL 2,428 ] in '25/'26 and BRL 2.384 (sic) [ BRL 2,384 ] in '26/'27. The historical average price adjusted for inflation should be BRL 2,060 per ton. But we are hedging sugar precisely because prices are above the historical level even if we discount inflation. And we believe that, that is going to keep us on the safe side. We can maintain good prices in our revenues going forward.

Now production cost. I would like to give you more color about the cash cost that you can see in our release. In the first quarter, the numbers are distorted if you compare to previous years. We exclude depreciation, and we add recurring CapEx to the numbers. And since revenue is not moving forward at the same page -- at the same pace as recurring CapEx, especially if you consider only the first quarter of the crop year, there's a big distortion. We also changed a few of our management practices, and we brought forward many of those practices. So there's a lot of distortion if you don't consider the crop year as a whole. And as the quarters come, those distortions decrease. They are mitigated. So that's why we are showing just the production cost. And we can see a trend going down.

So in terms of reals per ton in sugar equivalents, there has been a decrease by 10% in our production cost, going from BRL 1,700 to BRL 1,500, and that's the production cost up until the point where the product leaves the industry. We are talking about the production of raw ethanol and sugar. So there has been a 10% decrease here. And in cents per pound, the decrease was a little bit lower, 6.1%. And there has been an agricultural efficiency increase with a better TCH. The management practices also changed since the input prices decreased. And we also had a better production, so the costs are diluted.

So this is the overview that we wanted to present to you, and we're here to take any questions that you might have. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Mr. Pedro Fonseca with XP.

[Pedro Fonseca, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first one is about the weather and your expectations about TCH. Do you think that you are going to bring planting forward in '25/'26 crop year? And also about Santa Vitória, can you give us more color on the production there? And also about the sugar costs, I think the impacts in the first quarter are very clear. You mentioned your management practices and also the offseason. But what can we expect in terms of those effects? What are you estimating in terms of the cash costs?

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Thank you very much, Pedro, for your questions. Those are very good questions. The first one about planting, I'm going to address that question first. And I'm going to give you more details about our crops in the state of Goiás. We start planting in May, and we use irrigation there. We usually use a low-blade irrigation or we use supplementary irrigation. And in the state of Minas Gerais, we are using the same procedure.

So we don't have any issues related to not being able to plant. And if we cannot save that planted sugarcane through irrigation, those who can't do that have problems when there's no rain. In Minas Gerais and in Goiás, we don't have any rainfall from April to October. So that's the way we've always worked. So in our case, there is no impact related to that. We are using the same procedure as always, and we are planting according to our plan for the year. So everything is happening according to plan.

Now let's talk about the Mid-South region as a whole. In many regions, they don't use irrigation, for example, in São Paulo. In São Paulo, there is rainfall almost every month of the year. During the dry season, sometimes there's 2 months without any rainfall. But we have heard that there are mills that are planting and sugarcanes not sprouting or they have not been able to plant. And that can have an effect on the yields next year because the sugarcane fields are going to be older. So that's the first question.

Now about Santa Vitória's ramp-up, we are planting a lot of sugarcane there to renew the fields and also expand them. We are going to plant about 8,500 hectares, and 3,300 will be expansion, and the rest is renovation. So everything is going to plan. We are going to have an even higher production there next year.

Now about the current production, we are confirming our guidance that we issued in June with 8.23 million tons of sugarcane across the 3 units. And things are going according to plan so far to reach that guidance. And also, the market is talking about an issue, which is the sudden death as they call it. We are not going to have that problem. Last year, we finished the crop year at the normal time, and we had rain. And we didn't extend the crop year until December. We finished it in October or early November across the 3 plants. So that sugarcane grew, and we are not going to have the problems of having low yields and not being able to harvest. We don't have that problem. And we are confirming our guidance, 8.23 million tons.

Now about the cash cost per unit that you mentioned, Pedro, in your second question, I believe that what we said in the last call continues. The prices will be stable for the rest of the year. There is an inflationary pressure and maybe some other costs as well. For example, workforce, it is a challenge right now in Brazil as a whole. And in agriculture, it's no different. It's been challenging to find sufficient people. So workforce costs are going up.

However, input prices are going down, crop protection, fertilizers, industrial inputs that we use on the industrial side and also diesel. Diesel prices are lower than we expected than last year. So I believe that costs are stable this year. We are not going to see a spike because whereas the workforce costs are going down, the other costs -- the workforce costs are going up actually, but the other costs are going down.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Mr. Gabriel Barra with Citi.

[Gabriel Coelho Barra, analyst]

We had the Investor Day not long ago, and we talked a lot about your thesis and your medium- to long-term proposals. So I think that's what my first question is about. In the medium term, well, you talked about corn ethanol and biomethane and marginal investments and also the sugar share in your mix. I know we don't have much time in this call, but if you could give us more color and tell us your perspective about that considering the changes in the market. The exchange rate helped you, but Petrobras also increased the price of gas. So especially about corn ethanol, I would like to know your perspective when it comes to potential capital allocations in this sector.

And the second point is about cash generation. You have been investing a lot over the past years with a significant growth. But with your cash generation and your investments, I believe that you had to adjust, and your cash generation has been reasonable, if you will. So what are you thinking in terms of cash generation for this year? And I think that relates to my first question. Thinking about capital allocation, what are your perspectives for cash generation this year and the next years?

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Gabriel, thank you very much for your participation. And thank you very much for being at our Jalles Day event, and thank you to all of you who were there. We were very happy about having all of you there that day with us.

About long-term investments, Gabriel, well, we are analyzing the different investments, for example, biogas. We have a biodigester there in one of our units. So we are considering producing biomethane in that unit. We are discussing the return. And also, we are considering doing that in other units and what technologies we would use in that case, of course, analyzing the return on investment.

But in this business, the funding source is very important because that can improve our return, because we have to consider the interest rates from the BNDES for those purposes. So the company is looking into that right now. We are not rushing this. We are not rushing, and we don't want to further increase our leverage level. We are at a comfortable level right now, and we want this level to remain comfortable, and we want to keep our rating. So that is very important for us.

Now about corn ethanol, we are looking at the 3 plants, the 3 units. We are considering the availability of steam and power and availability, considering the amount of corn that we have to assess whether or not we should have an ethanol, a corn ethanol installation in one of our units. But we are just conducting analysis right now. We are going to make the decision later, not now, and we want to consolidate the investment cycle.

As you said, this is a capital-intensive sector, and we work with our own sugarcane only. So any growth is capital intensive. We have made a number of investments. We are ramping up this year and next year again. And in 2026, we are going to finish the process of ramping up in all units. We have made part of those investments. And now we have to reap the benefits of those investments, and we're going to do that throughout the next 2 years.

Now cash generation. This year, cash generation before expansion CapEx and improvements, considering the entire scenario, the sector and sugar price and also the ethanol prices, well, our cash generation will be strong. And we are going to be able to fulfill our expansion commitments without the need of having more debt. And then when these projects are finished, we are going to analyze capital allocation possibilities. And in case it is feasible, we are going to invest. But we need to design where and when to do it.

[Operator]

The next question was submitted in writing by Mr. [ Marcelo Maciel ]. Can you give us more details about the variation of the biological assets in 1Q '25 and specify the relevant items that caused the amount of other operating revenues to go up?

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Thank you. Thank you very much for your question. Just to give you an overview of the 2 points, well, the biological asset variation happens because you need to bring to present value the revenue that the sugarcane field will give you in the next year. At the end of June, the price of sugar and also the price of ethanol had gone up quarter-on-quarter. So when you calculate the fair value of the biological asset, that price, that amount went up. But actually, it went up much less than the mark-to-market precisely because the price of sugar went up quarter-on-quarter. So we had to mark them in a negative way. And for biological assets, it's the opposite. We need to present what the sugarcane field will bring in terms of revenue in the next 12 months.

And the other operating revenues, well, since we sold a lot of ethanol, ethanol has an ICMS tax rate that is higher in the state of Goiás. It's higher than sugar. So the more we sell, we have a discount in the ICMS tax rate. It is a tax incentive, and we recognize that discount. We account for that discount in the other operating revenues line item. So the main factor that affected that was the tax incentive. But we have our team at your disposal to give you more details if necessary. Thank you very much for your participation. But Luiz and Lucas are here, and they can contact you or you can get in contact with them to know more about this.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] As there are no more questions, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Penna for his closing remarks. Please, Mr. Penna, go ahead.

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Thank you. Thank you very much for your participation. During the presentation, I didn't say that, but we took advantage of the stress in the FX rate and also sugar prices. And we decided to make more headway in our hedge policy. And by the end of June, we already had 33% of our '26/'27 crop year hedged. And in July, after we finished the quarter, we continued to take advantage of that good moment.

We have a constructive perspective for the crop year as a whole. Sugar and ethanol prices are very good. It's not so bad as last year, and our mix is leaning more towards sugar than we had last year. And in terms of crushing and yield, we confirm the guidance that we have already published to the market.

So I would like to thank you all once again for your participation. Thank you so much for your interest. Thank you also to our team. Our team has been supporting us in our earnings calls and in the production of the materials that we present to you.

I was going to say goodbye, but actually, I think we have another question.

[Operator]

Yes. We do have another question from Pedro Fonseca with XP.

[Pedro Fonseca, analyst]

Since we still have time, I have 2 very quick questions. You talked about hedge. Is there any trigger that you expect to have so that you can advance more in your hedging policy? I think that your decisions were very good considering the prices that we have seen. So I would like to know more about your perspective for hedge going forward.

And also, just to confirm our understanding, there was an issue that impacted VHP. And you said in the release that this volume tends to go to normal levels in the next quarters. Has that already happened?

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Thank you, Pedro, for your question. At our Jalles Day event, we gave you more details about our hedge policy, but this is how it works. If prices are ahead or above the historical levels, the more we hedge. We tend to hedge 50%. And if it's above the historical levels, we do more than that. If it's below the historical level, we do less than that. So that's the rationale that we use.

Since it's above the historical average, that's why we are hedging more. And we do that for 24 months after the current point. So we are always looking 24 months ahead of us. And we are more conservative when it comes to hedging volumes for more than 24 months in advance. And we showed you exactly that in the presentation. We showed you 24 months. So for the third crop year, we tend to be more conservative. We calculate the costs from now to that point, and we consider twice the inflation that we have.

Let's say that the implicit inflation rate is 6% per year. We are going to use 12% per year for 2 crop years, and then we compare those prices. And we consider the costs adjusted for that inflation rate, and we have to have an EBIT above 20%. If we have, for example, 30%, then we can hedge 50%. And we go up that ladder from 20% to 40%, and we go from 0% to 100%. So if the EBIT margin is 30% for the third crop year, I can hedge up to 50%. That's what we can do. It doesn't mean that we are going to. So right now, we don't have any room. We used to have, but today, we don't have any room to hedge the third crop year ahead from now. So that's how we work and manage our hedging policy.

And you also asked about freight and shipment of VHP. Things are back to normal. For organic sugar, we had delays. And distributors and clients had those delays in shipping. And towards the end of July, early August, we saw some price increases, some container price increases. But things are going well, and we are able to ship our production according to plan. Please go ahead, Amanda.

[Operator]

I was going to ask you actually if you have any closing remarks.

[Rodrigo de Siqueira, executive]

Yes, I had already given my closing remarks. I'll spare you. I'd just like to say thank you very much, and see you in our next earnings call.

[Operator]

Okay. So that concludes Jalles earnings call for today. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a good one.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]