Mahle Metal Leve SA

BOVESPA:LEVE3

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to MAHLE Metal Leve's Videoconference to discuss the results for the Fourth Quarter of 2024. This videoconference is being recorded, and the replay can be accessed on the company's website at the Investor Relations sector. The presentation is also available for download. Please be advised that all participants will only be able to watch the videoconference during the presentation. After that, we will begin the question-and-answer session when further instructions will be provided.

Before proceeding, I take this opportunity to reinforce that the forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the management of MAHLE Metal Leve and on the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties given that they relate to future events and that depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors, analysts and attendees in general, must take into account that events related to the macroeconomic environment, the segment and other factors that may cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in their respective forward-looking statements.

Presenting this videoconference are Mr. Claudio Cesar Braga, CFO; Daniel Brasil Alves, Marketing and Corporate Communications Director; and Fábio Lopes Peres, Finance Executive Director. I would now like to hand the floor to Claudio Braga, who will begin his presentation. Please proceed, Mr. Braga.

[Claudio Braga, executive]

Good afternoon and thank you for this introduction. I would like to thank all attendees for their time and their interest in participating in this videoconference. In this quarter our agenda is going to be shorter. We will focus on MAHLE Metal Leve in the last quarter of 2024 and in the full year. But like in previous quarters, we are not bringing special guest. We will have more time left for questions and answers at the end. We have very relevant highlights in the last quarter. And I would like to extend my thanks to you for your help in the acquisitions made in August and September. And more specifically, I would like to thank those who helped us and well, we'll first present the financial results, then Daniel Alves is going to show us the market overview and also some commercial data and Fábio Peres will finally focus on the finance aspect.

Now moving forward to main highlights. In 2024, our net sales revenue totaled BRL 4.6 billion, and it's important to say that acquisitions have had a major impact on the last quarter, but they did not have an effect for the full 12 months of operations of '24. As you can see in the Investor Relations side and also CVM, you can see the total volumes of sales was BRL 200 million. So the BRL 4.6 billion minus BRL 200 million is still much higher than the BRL 3.3 billion we had in 2023.

Now let's talk about EBIT. EBIT totaled 19.1%. There are 2 point that I would like to highlight, this is also presented in the financial information. First is a provision of guarantee that was made in December, totaling BRL 32 million. This relates to a problem that was detected and mapped with the customers, and we are working on a correction plan to solve that. It is a failure in design or a failure in production is an issue that has not been determined yet. And usually, this problem tends to prolong. So what we did together with our auditors is to provision for that. And at this point we have a provision of BRL 32 million, we do not know at this point whether this is going to be continued or prolonged or not. This has not given an impact on the results so far of 2025.

And again, the responsibility for this failure has not been determined yet.

So this provision is probably going to go through some changes in the next month. It could be reversed or this amount could be maintained. EUR 5 million that we have, maybe some changes in the future due to foreign exchange, if foreign exchange fluctuates. The 19.1% EBIT we see here on the screen compares to 18.8% with the figure at the end of '23.

Another important point that I would like to highlight is, if you recall, the live we had for the acquisitions, in September. And then on the road show that we had, there is also a recording of those meetings in our website. But our acquisitions, they have a commercial profile that differs a lot from MAHLE Metal Leve because MAHLE Metal Leve, we focus on aftermarket mainly, while the operations we have just acquired have a much lower share of their business in the aftermarket. So what we communicated, and we, of course, have some limited information that was communicated but during acquisition, we said especially for the operation of Compressores, the other 2 acquisitions were smaller. But these Compressores operations depend a lot on their old customers. So there could be some discussions -- necessary discussions about margin in my opinion.

We closed with the adjusted EBITDA of 21.7%. I think that in the next quarter, we will give you more information. This is still an effect of the hyperinflation in Argentina. We see some interesting moves involving the Argentinian government. This is just a digress because a digression because I didn't plan to talk about that. But part of the money that was stuck in Argentina that was invested there in dollar, not to ruin our purchasing power is money was to -- have now started to use. We started making payments to suppliers in Argentina and that show that our strategy of investing in bonds and in dollars was very good strategies. So our balance now is slightly positive at the end of this business -- of this equation.

This is an environment that still undergoes hyperinflation. According to the rules, we need to have 3-year consecutive years with inflation above 100% to configure hyperinflation. So we need more time with inflation under 100% a year to move away from the hyperinflation status. What we accounted for there but we need to take that into account for the future.

Another point that we highlighted in previous quarters is that hyperinflation in the country like Argentina is something common place. There are constant price adjustments, content, service price adjustments because the economy adjusts to hyperinflation there. But when we bring that to MAHLE in Brazil, there is a significant accounting impact.

The adjusted EBITDA is 21.7% in 2024. If you deduct the IAS 29 figure, it will be 20.7%. The impact of hyperinflation, it's not something that we can simply deduct from this figure and have a clean number. Just having some audio issues here. So it's not just a matter of going to the financial statements and deducting that line related to adjustments for hyperinflation, it's different than that. We will see later on more in detail the monetary position that will show the total figure and the total figure has a part of it that is related to the calculation related to hyperinflation. And the rest of the positive amount you will see accounted for makes enough offset for amounts that had been reported in the upper line.

So we do have hyperinflation that has an impact on our sales cost or sales revenue and also some expenses but ultimately, everything you see until administrative aspects are negative effects. And -- but there is an offset later because of the net monetary contribution. So it's important to deduct from this equation, this adjustment for nonmonetary assets.

So 21.7% adjusted EBITDA. I just wanted to summarize, but maybe my explanation made things even more confusion. 21.7% is still higher than what we had in 2023 if the hyperinflation effect is deducted. It's very important to draw your attention to the fact that this has not been inflated or something. In the morning we try to analyze the effects of hyperinflation. If you do not account for the hyperinflation of Argentina, you can compare with 2017, EBITDA then was 17.7%. There was no impact of hyperinflation then. And this -- so it was 17.7% in 2017 then we moved to 20.7% in '23 and 21.7% in '24.

As to the last point related to the 3 acquisitions. And again, I would like to thank the team that helped us. This is a team that was really instrumental in this acquisition. We purchased part of a company in Rio Grande do Sul, a 33.3% stake, it is not controlled by MAHLE Metal Leve, so you do not see that so much in the profit loss in different lines, rather as 1 single line as an investment, generating a positive result. We will see the impact of that is 1 single line, it's a 33.3% stake. The other acquisition total -- had a total sales of BRL 200 million. Even if the average business has a lower aftermarket sales, you see that we might have a drop in terms of percentage of sales. But still, the amounts will be much higher than what we paid for those businesses. So I believe that ultimately, those acquisitions were a very positive decision.

In the case of Compressores, their sales were above valuation by 14%. So we were able to leverage sales of the Compressores Company because of negotiations with customers and also addition in demand from one particular customer. And it was 10 percentage points superior to the valuation amount. This is public information, you can access that.

As for the Thermal business, our sales volume was aligned with our expectations with the initial valuation. And this was determined by the gains we had in foreign exchange in exports. The gross profit was, again, doubled what we had evaluated initially. And Arco, the stake that we had still a 10% above so what we had in the valuation, the negotiation clauses are different for Arco and for Compressores or Thermal. In this particular case, we will have a [ draw option ] for the future. We had a very bold figures in the valuation. But still, we closed sales, 10% above the amounts we expected for as we had in the valuation process.

Another point that was not communicated in detail is that this was a little bit lower than we had in the valuation. And contrary to Thermal, it's because of the negative impact of the foreign exchange rate in imports because Arco still depends a lot on foreign suppliers. We were not able to see the full impact of these acquisitions and also the effect of potential synergies, something that probably will be able to see in the future, and then we will share that with you. We expect to have positive results and synergy here.

Now I will turn it over to Daniel Alves.

[Daniel Alves, executive]

Thank you, Claudio. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in this teleconference. To present the results of MAHLE Metal Leve for the year 2024 and the fourth quarter of '24.

So let me give a market overview related to sales and production of vehicles in Brazil and Argentina as well as in North American Europe. In the first line, you see the sales of light vehicles in Brazil, reaching almost 2.5 million vehicles, a 14.1% growth. This percentage growth was the highest growth in the main markets of vehicle sales. Brazil now ranks 6 again in sales of vehicles in the world. It was a very significant growth in sales. In Argentina, we had 411,000 vehicles, 1.1% growth. And the growth in the second half of the year because in the first half of the year, it was a little bit weaker because of some of the adjustments made by the new President and their economy.

So that has had an impact on the sales of light vehicles in the first 6 months of the year but there was a major pickup in the second half of the year, especially in the last quarter. And because of that, we completed 2024 with a 1.1% growth much better than the projection we had in Q3. So Brazil plus Argentina, almost 2.9 million light vehicles, sold, a 12.1% growth.

Now let me talk about heavy-duty vehicles. In Brazil, it reached 147,000 trucks and buses, a 14.7% growth in sales, a significant growth, a 2-digit growth. In Argentina, the economic adjustments and difficulties had an impact, but still, they had a 4% increase, 14,000 trucks and buses sold in Argentina. And the combination of both markets reached 162,000 vehicles, 13.7% growth in sales. Fenatran last year in Brazil, this is a major fair exhibit of transportation that has led to more sales in heavy-duty vehicles.

So now let me talk about production in Brazil. We had 2.3 million light vehicle, an 8% growth. In this particular case, Brazil keeps its 8th position in -- as the 8th largest producer of vehicles in the world. And also you see the difference between the increase in sales versus the increase in production. This has had an impact related to an increase in imported vehicles. This is something that ANFAVEA, the association constantly mentioned. Also, the number of electric and hybrid cars has increased. The tax on those cars has increased, it's now 10% in January -- in last January, and now it's at 18%. We forecast that in July this year, there will be a 25% tax on those cars and July of '26, it will reach 35% tax which is the regular imports for a combustion vehicle.

So today, we have a lower tax on hybrid and also electric cars, it's lower than for combustion engine vehicles. In Argentina, we had a drop in production of 17%. This is still better than our forecast. So Brazil plus Argentina totaled [ 2.9 million ] light vehicles produced, which accounts for a 2.6% growth vis-a-vis 2023. As for heavy-duty vehicles, in Brazil, 169,000 buses and trucks were produced, a 39.5% growth. This is opposite to what happened in light vehicles, there was a higher increase in production rather than in sales.

And this relates to what happened in '23. In 2024, we produced what was sold, while in 2023, we had still more vehicles in inventory that -- so there was a prebuy so that people could abide by the new regulations. So this explains an almost 40% growth in production of heavy-duty vehicles because in 2024 we needed to produce what had been sold.

While in Argentina, it was a mild drop in production of 2.1%, just 8,000 trucks and buses and the combined production of Brazil and Argentina, it was a 177,000 vehicles, a 36.8% growth.

Now still talking about Brazil and Argentina to wrap up what we call a domestic market. We already have the closing data for February. So let me share with you what is public information in terms of sales and production of vehicles in Brazil and Argentina. In the first quarter of '25 and I think it's important to share that with you so that you can better understand the behavior of the market. In Brazil, the sales of light vehicles had a 9% growth. So 2025 is starting better than '24. In Argentina, this pickup remains, It's a 62% growth in the sale of light vehicles in Argentina.

And the combination of both countries totaled 16% growth in the first quarter of '25 in the sales of light vehicles. So 16% growth. And we expect, based on some of the forecast that ANFAVEA is making for the sales of light vehicles and also on projection forecast. For Argentina, we expect the full quarter to total 16%. And for the full year, the forecast is an increase in 8%. For production, 1.3% growth in Brazil and 2% in -- 126% in Argentina. So the combination of Brazil and Argentina is a 25% growth in production in the quarter and also 1% in the full year.

So this market in terms of production is moving sideways in the sales of heavy-duty vehicles because of the interest rates because that would not encourage the sales of trucks and buses. But on the other hand, we expect crops and grains to be very high this year. So we expect the results for 2024 to be very similar to 2024, which was already a very good year. So this is why we expect a 1% growth in sales for heavy-duty vehicles. As for production, we had a 15% growth in Argentina, 21% growth in production of light vehicles, 16% in the combined market, and we forecast for 2025 to see an 8% growth in production of light vehicles. So very similar to the percentage of growth in sales, 8% growth in production then.

As for heavy-duty vehicles, we expect an 11% growth in the first quarter for Brazil, 56% in Argentina, combined market, 13% growth in the quarter, and we expect production to follow the same trend of sales, a 1% increase for the full year. So a very similar forecast for light vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles. We believe that the economy is going to cool off a little bit. And this is also important for -- to predict what is going to happen with the interest rate we expect to have an initial increase in the SELIC rate and then a reduction. So for the beginning of the year, we have good forecast.

Now let me talk about the European market and the North American market. This is the markets that traditionally MAHLE exports to. Production finished the year with a 5.2% drop in production of light vehicles in Europe and a 1.3% drop in North America and combined data of these market totals a drop of 3.4%. For this year, we expect that these markets combined will have a 2% growth. So we expect the production of light vehicles in Europe and North America to be slightly negative. For heavy-duty vehicles in Europe, there was an 18.2% drop in production of light vehicles, for heavy-duty vehicles in the North America, 6.2%, combined market dropped 12.4%. For the full year, we expect to have a drop of 2% in the production of heavy duty market -- for these heavy-duty vehicles for these markets.

Now let me move to Slide 6. This shows the evolution of the performance of the net revenues by market. So focusing on 2024 and 2023, so full year results for each year. You see original equipment domestic market, you see a 21% growth vis-a-vis 2023 totaling almost BRL 1.4 million. And we had some effect, most of the factors here, the original equipment domestic market. So if you deduct the effect of MAHLE Compressores acquisition, it would have been 7%. So 21% with the acquisition. If we deduct the effect of the acquisition it will be 7% which is the production of light vehicles that had a little bit over 2% increase.

In sales we had a gain in market shift for light vehicles. There was an increase in revenue especially for motor components and filters. For heavy-duty vehicles, there was a drop in revenues despite the market growth because the heavy-duty market grew over 35%. So we do have indirect exports. We supply to our customers in Brazil and our customers export a part of even the full engine. So this indirect export here in the domestic OE had an impact on our revenue for heavy-duty components, especially for agricultural equipment. And in 2024, we also had a significant drop in the production of agricultural equipment.

Now moving to original equipment, OE for exports, [ BRL 1.2 million ] and 88.6% drop. The main explanation to this is a drop in the heavy-duty market. Europe and in North America, we saw a 12.4% drop. And in addition to this drop in heavy-duty equipment, there was also a ramp down of a [ vol ] for a specific application for a light vehicle. There was an end of production of particular [ vol ], and that has led to this drop that we see in this line for OE exports.

So in total, we had 5.1% growth in OE. So let me talk specifically about the quarter. If you look at the original equipment domestic line, we had an 89.9% growth. If you deduct the effect of the acquisition of the company would have been 24%. So the fourth quarter had much superior results than the ones we got for the fourth quarter of '23 in revenue for OE for the domestic market. Again, an improvement in the export market, 3.5%. In total, OE had a 42.9% growth.

Now let me talk about the domestic aftermarket cards for the domestic market. We had a 2.1% growth in the year. And the main negative impact we had relates to Argentina. In 2023, our distributors build stock. So we expected peso to devaluate and here, you have a distribution center in Buenos Aires. So for the domestic aftermarket, not just in Brazil, but also sales in Argentina are included in this slide. We had a 24% drop in Argentina and in Brazil, the after market business offset the loss that we had in Argentina. We built stock, so we reduced sales for Argentina in '24 but the aftermarket business in Brazil made up for that. So it offset the loss we had and still -- so we completed the year with a 2.1% increase.

In exports, it was a 23.8%. The explanation is that 2023 was a weak year. It was instability economic and political stability in some countries in Latin America and in 2024 we also established a dedicated sales force MAHLE for Colombia, Peru and Argentina. And this is why we had such an increase in revenues for the exports aftermarket business. In 2024, we had, in total, a 5.1% growth, BRL 4.55 [ billion ], as Claudio mentioned, and if we did that, the acquisition, this growth will be 1.1%.

And I will turn over to Fábio again. And then I will be available to answer your questions in the Q&A session.

[Claudio Braga, executive]

I see that some of the participants mentioned that there was a drop in quality of my audio. If you see any problems or I don't understand anything, please let me know and I repeat it.

So now let me give you more details about financial results. So if we start with the -- compared the fourth quarter of '24 against the fourth quarter of '23, as we mentioned, there was a very strong increase BRL 1.16 billion to BRL 1.3 billion influenced also by the BRL 200 million that we had in acquisitions, a cost of sales that moved from 73% to 77%. Again, very strong impact on the introduction of guarantees of the BRL 32 million. And if I deduct that, we have a 2.4 percentage point impact so BRL 22.8 million would be something like BRL 25 million.

And the same impact can be seen in the full year. You see an increase in sales, as Daniel has already mentioned, and an increase in cost 0.8 percentage points. So this guarantees when spread all over the year has a 0.6% impact that gives us some offset and makes profits very similar between '23 and '24.

When you look at overhead and the year-to-date information, 7.7%, moving to 7.5%. So you see there's a lot of alignment here. And this relates also to acquisitions. The acquisitions maintain their structure, but they have lower expenses, selling, distribution, general expenses, there is also a negative impact in general and administrative expenses, 0.2 percentage points. So you see that we have good alignment in terms of research and development expenses, too. So what I try to explain that when you see a profit before finance income, in 2023, 1.6 percentage points of impact. It seems to inflate our results, it seems to be intentional, but it's not because this figure does not reflect the total effect of the acquisitions. I think that in the next quarters, we need to give you more detail about the potential impacts.

And in 2024, we expect to have 2.6. This in the last quarter is a little bit lower because of what I mentioned before related to inflation and policies in Argentina we have seen reduction in the inflation rates in Argentina. And based on macroeconomic data, we expect these figures to get more normal, not in the short term because it usually takes about 2 years to see those results, but they tend to become normal.

Again, and the EBIT -- the profit before finance income and cost and EBIT, 12.7% in the quarter, but I think that in the quarter, this draws our attention and also the impact of some acquisitions that had profit a little bit lower than Metal Leve but we already planned for that in the valuation. I'm not going to go into the details of all these lines, and I'd like Fábio to explain some of them. But one data draws our attention, especially for those that are not used to the analysis of our earnings, our investors are usually more familiar with positive results that you see in the fourth quarter of '23 and at the end of '23. But because of the dividends distribution that was done in November of '23 and also due to the payout of the reserves because we have significant investment reserves that was distributed to. The company did not have enough cash for that level of disimbursement, so we had to take that. But later on, we'll also give you more details on that. And then profit after taxes, [ 8.4 ] in the last quarter.

So let me highlight the cash movements. We added the slide 2 or 3 quarters ago to show you more clearly. In the slides, we talk about financial expenses, and we relate that to cash disbursement. But that's not exactly true in our case because of the indebtedness of 2023. And we had maturities that are expected to be due in 2026 and 2027. So when we had exports based on the way of the euro exchange rate, then we are going to deduct that. So we will pay our debt in euro but we have to recognize in the profit/loss the effect of the exchange rate variation, whether it's positive or negative.

So here, if you compare the cash and equivalents at the end of 2023 and the cash and equivalents at the end of '24, you will see that we acquired -- that we had new loans, but they were not determined by the acquisitions. We will talk more about that. There was also a strong payment of dividends in May and the payout of dividends relates to most of the new debts -- new loans. In the second column, you see that also payment of new loans. So we had new loans that very equivalent to the payments that we had. So this figure over the years tend to be reverted as well.

The impact of interest rates on cash was BRL 48 million. The cash generation is very positive, operating cash of BRL 708 million. So we paid dividends and also interest on equity cash out, totaling BRL 318 million. In taxes, then investments. I'm not going to go into the details of this chart, I will focus on the 3 last columns. And if you have questions, we can go back to the slide.

So you see it in the cash out of acquisitions. Again, acquisitions where our strategy to reduce our potential indebtedness and to reduce potential leverage. So we negotiated payment in 3 different installments. So we made the first payment in October. And you see the cash out for acquisitions of about BRL 250 million for the 3 business including our stake at Arco. In the valuation we already consider that. But in the valuation, we believe it will be about BRL 80 million in cash at the end. But when we merged MAHLE Compressores into MAHLE Metal Leve our cash, in fact, totaled BRL 147 million. So basically, this was already paid in the first installment because BRL 147 million base resources that were brought from this acquisition. And you see that for others is very similar to what we had in '23.

Now I will turn over to Fábio. Fábio?

[Fábio Peres, executive]

Again, talking about Slide #8. Can you please go back to Slide #8. I think it's important to say that despite the volume of indebtedness that we have, when you look at the BRL 48 million column interest rates paid. We also had an offset of that of about BRL 13 million in interest rates because of the volume in that. So this is low when you consider the volume.

Now moving to Slide #9. Let me talk about the net financial results. In 2024, we have in the full year vis-a-vis 2023, in 2024, we had almost BRL 23 million in expenses with net interest income. And in 2023, it was a positive BRL 75 million. But indebtedness in 2024 was higher than in 2023 as Claudio has already mentioned. We also had a lower average cash, although we totaled the year in BRL 383 million in cash. In average -- our average was lower. In 2023, we were impacted by cash volume in Argentina that it was lower and the average rate was 155% a year in '23 and in 2024, the same rate was 77%. So you have more interest rates in 2023, but in 2024, where you have lower levels of interest rate.

If you look at the net foreign exchange variation there was a small exchange here. Most of that is accounting exchange. A volume of about EUR 140 million in average that we had in 2023 and 2024. If you see a 19.5% reduction in the euro exchange rate can you see impacts in debt because the debt is in euro. So you have about [ BRL 1 ] in devaluation in BRL 145 million, you have BRL 139 million in this slide.

Last year, the exchange rate volatility was different, and we had positive results. So here you'll see net variation, 0.5 million, '23, 8.9 in '24. When you compare these periods, the SELIC rate last year was lower in 2023 than it was in 2024. So our liabilities in terms of provisions, such as provisions need to be corrected by the SELIC rate with higher SELIC rates, then we had more interest rates. Almost EUR 122 in revenue in Q3, EUR 71 million in expenses in 2024. Most of that relate to, as I mentioned, higher indebtedness, higher interest rates and also the exchange rate variation that we experience in euro in 2024.

Now let me move about and talk about assets and liabilities. So cash was very similar between 2023 and 2024. And in terms of borrowing we see BRL 851 million in '23. And were considering the exchange rate in 2024, it totaled BRL 1 billion. We were able to maintain, we had BRL 142 million in 1 year, BRL 144 million in the next year. So it's different with BRL 183 million. That was basically a trend that we received a FINEP of BRL 133 million and BRL 50 million related to exchange rate.

In the short and in the medium term, we have a long debt, confirming what Claudio mentioned, that maturity will be 50% of them in '26, the other 50% in '27. It will be BRL 653 million, so we're able to keep our leverage of 0.66. With the projections that we made in the valuations before the acquisitions, we expected to have 0.79 and now we see a lower level of indebtedness because of the acquisitions. So now we have 0.66 of leverage.

I would like to thank you for your participation, and we'll now take your questions. We are available to answer your questions myself, Daniel and Claudio. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Marcelo from JPMorgan.

[Marcelo Motta, analyst]

So I have 2 questions. First I'd like to get details on the BRL 32 million. Understanding what could be the outcome of this discussion related to this provision. You mentioned that this should not have any impact on '25. Of course, it depends on reversal. Is it a dispute that just involves the commercial area? Or could that become a legal dispute? How does that impact the relationship with customers? I would like to understand more about that.

And the other question relates to the gross margin. Even if we deduct this effect, it will be 25%, still a drop vis-a-vis the last year. Is this a level that we should expect of margins because we understand there was an impact of acquisitions that, of course, has a negative impact on gross margin. But should we expect this level of growth margin for 2025?

[Daniel Alves, executive]

This is Daniel. So let me answer the first part of your question. As mentioned by Claudio, BRL 32 million, EUR 5 million for a provision of guarantees and this is not a commercial discussion. This is still a technical discussion. We have a product that has 3 different applications 2, 4, 6 cylinders. In one of these versions, we experienced problems. And the part passed the validation test in the customer. So this is why this is technical discussion related to the design of the product. So we do not see an impact on customer relationships, quite the opposite. Because we built a joint task force to detect a root cause and to solve the problem. So the problem has already been solved. There was a change in design and also a change in the validation test to be able to detect a problem before having problems.

So as Claudio mentioned, so the amount that we provision will be like a worst-case scenario. Maybe Claudio can answer the second part of your question.

[Claudio Braga, executive]

Hello, Marcelo. Based on your comment and also based on what we saw, indeed, we have a gross profit lower than MAHLE Metal Leve. And we had a valuation of not talking about the future or any potential improvements to for leverage. But if you just consider the current scenario, the gross profit will probably be reduced a little bit. We cannot yet say that this is the new normal. We are committed in our company to look for any type of synergies, we see some potential synergies especially in Arco, that's an independent company. The other companies will be part of the MAHLE Group. So they also sell services to MAHLE Companies outside MAHLE Metal Leve. So we see some administrative and commercial synergies.

As to Arco, we see more synergy potential. Financial cost could be different because it's different when MAHLE negotiates with banks rather than a company of this size, negotiates with banks and also customers we have more power of negotiation. So BRL 375 million gross profit had some effect of the purchase, but I cannot tell you right now if the new gross profit we should expect is about 25%. But in the last quarter, we also had the increase of the base date of payments, other effects related to payroll.

So in the end -- the last quarter in the year tends to be different from the other quarters. Usually, this becomes more balanced throughout the year. Usually, it drops the average down. Although it's superior to our valuation, there was this impact of these money that we save for guarantee. So at this point, I cannot tell you exactly whether 25% will be the new gross margin. But the gross profit of the acquisitions is lower than MAHLE Metal Leve gross profit.

[Operator]

Our next question is from [ Leandro ] with Bradesco BBI. Go ahead, sir.

[Unknown Analyst]

Good afternoon, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a question. I would like to have a follow-up question on Marcelo's second question. Could you talk a little bit more about the EBITDA margin and what do you expect in relation to the last quarter of '24?

[Claudio Braga, executive]

We have a commercial issue. This was also explained in other calls that we had during the road show and also when we were giving more details about the acquisition to the market. Although we had BRL 200 million in sales in the last quarter, the focus on just a few customers. If you give more -- give too much details about this margin, maybe it's not appropriate for the group to discuss that. I cannot tell you too much. But as I mentioned in the first slide, I can tell you that we had a valuation from Compressores that had a 13% level of profit before taxes, and we ended the year with much higher numbers. So it was sales than we expected.

And for Thermal, we basically had double the value we had in valuation. And in Arco we had sales that increased, but because of the exchange rate variation, this effect was diminished. So as for Thermal and Compressores that we had a major volume of sales, we had a significant increase of about 9 percentage points vis-a-vis what we had predicted in the valuation. I cannot give you a lot of details about that even in -- we wanted to give you transparency as you deserve, but we did not to run into trouble in the future because in the commercial business. So we're trying to regroup the information, but this is as much as I can tell.

Maybe we can give you more detail on one specific example, but this is as much as I can tell you right now.

[Unknown Analyst]

It's okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]. Just please wait while we collect questions.

[Claudio Braga, executive]

If you don't mind, I will put here in the chat, some questions related to the reduced payout for 2024. So will that mean difference in investments in the companies acquired or differences in payout for 2027? This was a question by Rodolfo.

As to the payment of dividends at the end of 2024, this has already been communicated to the market in explanatory notes. So yes, we will have an Extraordinary General Meeting. As I mentioned in 2023, with the follow-on, we used to have all reserves that we have. And this is why we took different loans. So it's not comfortable for us in the administration to run the company exposed to any type of risk. There is a new administration in the U.S. We have the macroeconomic situation in Latin America that is very confused at this point, also war in Europe and Middle East. So we have major instability.

So the Board of Directors decided has been approved, and it's available to the market the results and then we have the Extraordinary General Meeting. Reserves were temporary, you need to retain some reserves for -- to make investments, BRL 157 million that you saw in the presentation, and at some point, we will -- this money will go back to investors as happen in 2023. So without making any promises, we can say that, yes, we are concerned with not having reserves. Every time we pay dividends, I do not need to resort to banks every time we'll pay dividends.

So as to advancements in the companies we purchased. If you look at the material related to valuation of the company named Compressores, that company was going through an expansion. It has a machinery being imported and this was paid by the previous owner, and this was already considered in the valuation. So there will be no surprises for investments of MAHLE Metal Leve. As to additional investments, I believe we'll make that over time as regular business tools or to replace all the equipment but this is just part of the regular operation.

So there was also a question about additional revenue and is also asking about recurring effect. It's very difficult to predict how the market is going to behave. I cannot myself be an investor, but what I can say is an administrator is that, yes, I hope that the revenue will increase but it would depend a lot on the macroeconomic conditions, especially in Brazil. We do not have any expectations of having a reduction in our business this year.

Would you like to add something?

[Daniel Alves, executive]

No. I think you did just mentioned just fine. Revenue in Q4 was not very specific. It was just the regular sales of our operation. So it depends on markets and eventual oscillations or variations in the market.

[Claudio Braga, executive]

So [ Nicholas Miller ] asked, why the income tax in the fourth quarter of '24 was positive in BRL 56 million?

Let me -- okay this is part of the explanatory note. There was an impact on income on equity. An interest rate on equity product.

Marcelo asked, should I expect the first quarter of this year to have a valuation of real versus euro, expect some significant financial gain? And also about the gross margin for this quarter? What should we expect? [indiscernible] also asked about the expected CapEx for 2025?

Okay. So let me try to answer your questions. Since most of the depthness basically -- it was basically made in a strong currency in euro so every time there is a variation from one month in exchange rate on one month to another, you will see that indicated but you could have a positive impact January because there was a reduction of the exchange rate in January reduced a little bit. In February, it seems that it wasn't such a positive effect. And in March, at least 2 weeks ago, there was a slightly positive impact. In May, again, we'll discuss that. I do not want to give you any direct answer, but it depends a lot on the Central Bank, too.

Then there is a second part of Marcelo's question related to what could we expect in terms of gross margin?

Well, there's nothing much I can tell you here. everything we had mapped and according to the knowledge we have, and I'm thinking about macroeconomic conditions. Environment, for example. This is something that was discussed in 2023 and 2024. In the Q2 of 2024 we realized that there was nothing we didn't know about. So the accounting reflects the best knowledge that we have. Also guarantees that were accounted for in December, the BRL 32 million that were accounted for reflects the best knowledge we have so far. So potential for the future, well, it depends on the market. But based on what we know today, we -- all we can tell is that the BRL 32 million provision will be like the worst-case scenario. And Daniel also mentioned that there is yet a discussion on that to see whether this is -- the problem was more related to design or something else.

Once we know that, we can review the EUR 32 million guarantee, which, again, is the worst-case scenario. The problem has been solved, and we'll probably share more news soon.

As to CapEx we are investing in all our units. We make investments considering new business that we have, also renewal of some production lines. So we have different types of investment. We have a CapEx of BRL 157 million, which is exactly the amount we had reserved so if we take our business, especially for the engine business, we are investing BRL 80 million in Brazil. BRL 80 million in Brazil and BRL 11 million in Argentina. If you think about the future business, we are investing BRL 9 million. And if you think about aftermarket our investments in CapEx is lower, about BRL 7 million or BRL 8 million. And BRL 3 million in Argentina for the aftermarket.

The acquisition of Compressores -- MAHLE Compressores and the expansion that was ongoing also will get additional CapEx investments of around BRL 25 million. I hope that, that answers your question.

Any other questions we haven't answered yet? No? Okay.

We need to still draw more explanations in for future presentations. We are working on that to see how we can bring this information to you. Again, we add your disposal and you can access us through the Investor Relations website. If there is any question that was not answered or when you analyze in more detail the information we have disclosed, if you have questions in the future, please talk to us.

Well, I'm sorry that we took a little bit longer than expected. And but this was a quarter a little bit different from others. So this is why maybe we had more questions. I would like to thank you for your understanding. I'd like to thank the support of the team of this call as well as the moderators. Thank you.

[Operator]

MAHLE's videoconference is now closed. We thank you all for your participation, and wish you a good day.