Cementos Pacasmayo - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Pacasmayo's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and please note that this call is being recorded. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would now like to introduce you to your host for today's call, Mrs. Claudia Bustamante, Investor Relations Managing Director. Mrs. Bustamante, you may begin.

Claudia Bustamante (Managing Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Luis. Good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today is Mr. Humberto Nadal, our Chief Executive Officer, and Ms. Ely Hayashi, our Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Nadal will begin our call with an overview of the quarter, focusing primarily on our strategic outlook for the short and medium term. Ms. Hayashi will then follow with additional commentary on our financial results. We'll then turn the call over to your questions. Please note that this call will include certain forward-looking statements. These statements relate to expectations, beliefs, projections, trends, and other matters that are not historical facts and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties that might affect future events or results. Descriptions of these risks are set forth in the company's regulatory filings. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Humberto Nadal.

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Thank you, Claudia. Welcome everyone to today's conference, and thank you for joining us today. As I'm sure most, if not all of you, already know by now, on December 16, a significant milestone was achieved with the announcement of an agreement for Holcim to acquire Inversiones ASPI, which holds 50.01% controlling stake in Cementos Pacasmayo. The agreed-upon valuation of PEN 5.1 billion represents a strong multiple of 9x record EBITDA, calculated based on the last twelve months ending in July 2025. This transaction is pending regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the upcoming months. However, much more relevant than this favorable valuation is the fact that Holcim's decision serves as a powerful endorsement of Pacasmayo's long-term strategy, its operational excellence, and the consistent hard work delivered by generations of employees over nearly seven decades.

This milestone underscores the strength of our team, our commitment to our values, and our dedication to building a profitable, ethical, world-class company with a clear sense of purpose. We're immensely proud that a global leader like Holcim, which we have admired for so long, has placed its trust in Pacasmayo and in Peru. Moving forward, we'll collaborate to promote sustainable development, create new opportunities, and contribute to the growth of both the country and the wider region. That being said, I would like now to move on to a quick overview of our results for the quarter and for the full year 2025.

We continue to see very strong momentum in sales volumes, with an 8.2% increase this quarter compared to the same period of last year, and a very solid 7.2% increase for full year 2025 relative to 2024. This growth was driven mainly by stronger demand for infrastructure projects and a very consistent performance in all, the always reliable self-construction segment. Our excellent financial performance this quarter was driven by disciplined execution and a relentless focus on cost efficiencies. Excluding the one-off expenses related to the share purchase agreement signed with Holcim, EBITDA reached PEN 158.7 million, an 11.4 increase compared to the same period last year. This growth confirms the success of our efforts to permanently enhance profitability across our market.

This strong quarter capped off a record-breaking year once again, as we have done in 2024. We achieved an all-time high EBITDA of PEN 584.2 million for a full year, marking a 6.4 year-over-year increase when excluding one-off expenses. True to our commitment to operational excellence and climate action, we're continuously making progress in decarbonizing operations. We are proud to announce that we have achieved three-star recognition from Peru's Minister of Environment, MINAM, through the Peru Carbon Footprint Platform. This recognition is awarded for demonstrating consecutive years of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and it followed a collaborative effort with MINAM, including the submission of verified data for the 2022-2024 period.

Specifically, our Rioja plant recently earned its third star for 2024 emission reductions, building upon the recognition previously secured by both our Pacasmayo and Piura plants for the 2023 performance. In the same spirit, we are very pleased to highlight our continued leadership in the Merco ESG Sustainability Ranking. For a 10th consecutive year, we are recognized as the industry leader in this evaluation, which assesses the three dimensions of sustainability: environment, society and customers, and ethics and corporate governance. Furthermore, we maintain a top-tier position in the general ranking of the most responsible companies in Peru, placing ninth overall this year, which is a tremendous achievement for a regional company like ours. These recognitions strongly reinforce our commitment to our sustainability strategy, which remains central to our core business operations.

We are confident that these positive results are only the beginning, that the momentum we've built will continue to strengthen the future. At the same time, the confidence placed in us by such a prestigious global cement player reinforces our focus on operational excellence, profitability, disciplined execution, and always people at the center of every strategy. We're confident that the momentum we have built is there, and we remain motivated to keep improving our performance, while continuing to serve our clients, support our communities, and most of all, always contribute to the development of our country. I will now turn the call over to Ely, our CFO, to go into a more detailed financial analysis. Ely?

Ely Hayashi (CFO)

Thank you, Humberto, and good morning, everyone. For the first quarter of 2025, revenues increased by 6.2% year-over-year, reaching PEN 559.5 million. This growth was primarily driven by higher sales of bagged cement, along with increased sales of concrete and pavement for infrastructure projects. We delivered a strong profitability this quarter, with gross profit increased 11.4% year-over-year. This improvement was mainly due to a lower cost of raw materials, greater consumption of our own clinker, and operational efficiencies resulting from our maintenance and production plan. Consolidated EBITDA, excluding transactional expenses, also rose by 11.4% to PEN 158.7 million. Looking at the full year 2025, revenues grew by 7% compared to 2024.

Gross profit increased by 10.8%, driven by the same factor as the quarter. Lower raw material costs, higher use of our own clinker, and operational efficiency from our production plant. Full year EBITDA, after excluding the one-off transactional expenses, increased by 6.4% over 2024. Turning now to operating expenses. Administrative expenses for the first quarter 2025 increased by 5.7% and by 50% for the full year to the corresponding period in 2024. This was mainly attributable to higher personnel expenses resulting from collective bargaining negotiations from our labor union. Selling expenses decreased by 8.3% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous year, primarily due to lower depreciation and reduced advertising and promotional expenses.

However, for the full year 2025, selling expenses increased by 40%, driven by higher advertising and promotion expenses during the first nine months of the year, as well as the union modules mentioned before. In the fourth quarter of 2025, cement sales saw a notable increase of 13.6%. This growth was primarily fueled by robust demand for bagged cement within the self-construction sector. Likewise, for the full year 2025, cement sales increased 8.7% when compared to 2024. This elevated in demand is linked to the continued strength of the agro-industrial and fishing sector, which are key income drivers in the north. Regarding profitability, the gross margin increased by 0.4 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024.

Over the full year, gross margin increased by 1.9 percentage points versus 2024. These margin improvements are mainly attributable to a reduction in raw material costs and lower consumption of imported clinker. During this quarter, concrete, pavement, and mortar sales decreased by 25.1% year-over-year. This decline was mainly due to lower sales volume, as the Motupe Riverbank Defense Project was put on standby. We note, however, that this project has been prioritized to restart in the near future. Conversely, for the full year 2025, sales increased by 6.3%, mainly due to higher volume of mortar and concrete for infrastructure projects. Gross margin decreased by 7.8 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 3.2 percentage points for the full year.

This contraction was primarily due to the execution of the Piura Airport project and lower fixed cost dilution resulting from the halt of the Motupe project. During 2025, sales of concrete, pavement, and mortar increased 6.3%, mainly due to higher sales volume of mortar and concrete for infrastructure projects. Gross margin decreased 7.8 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter 2024, and 3.3 percentage points in compared to 2024. This decrease was mainly due to the execution of the Piura Airport project, as well as lower dilution of fixed costs from the halt of Motupe project, as mentioned before.

Regarding precast materials, sales decreased by 16% in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, mainly due to lower sales volume and a high comparative base in the fourth quarter 2024 from a road improvement project. However, full year 2025 sales increased by 3%, driven by higher demand from the public sector. Gross margin improved by 5.4 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2025, and 1.7 percentage points in 2025, mainly due to relative pricing and higher dilution of fixed costs. Consolidated net income for the quarter was negative due to the transactional expenses mentioned before. Excluding these one-off expenses, net income would have been PEN 59.8 million, making a 19.6% increase over the same period last year.

Similarly, for full year 2025, net income, excluding expenses, would have been PEN 231.8 million, an increase of 16.5% compared to 2024. Our Net Debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 2.8x. We continue to lower our debt through amortization payments, although it was partially offset by a lower EBITDA figure, to summarize, we continue to deliver solid financial results this quarter by capitalizing on favorable market conditions while diligently managing costs to achieve sustained profitability. Operator, can we now open the call for questions?

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. We'll now move to the Q&A part of the call. If you'd like to ask a question and you're connected from the phone, please press star two. It is star two if you're connected from the phone, and if you're connected from the web, you can ask a voice or send a text question as well. So we'll just give it a few moments for the questions to come in. Okay, so our first question is from Johan Clavijo, from Sego Capital. Thank you for the call. Could you please provide more details about the transaction with Holcim? Which steps are pending to close the transaction? Is there, is there any risk we should be aware of, and how do you feel about the regulatory approvals for the deal? Thank you.

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Thank you. Like I explained, the transaction, as we earlier, Holcim has acquired Inversiones ASPI, who controls 50.01% of the common shares of Pacasmayo. We are waiting for the INDECOPI approval. The process is running smooth, and we expect it to be approved in the coming months. That's all we can comment at this point, but we don't see anything coming up.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Mariana Taddeo, from Credicorp. Thanks for the presentation. Please, could you explain why acquisition-related expenses are assumed by Pacasmayo, and why are they so high?

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Yes. I mean, most of the transaction expenses are related to change of control issues that were, I mean, controls that were in the company for a very long time. Part of these transaction expenses will be assumed by Holcim. At the end, all of it was approved by our board, and we considered, I mean, given the price achieved by the for the shares of the company, this was very reasonable and had to do with contractual obligations Pacasmayo had from before. And like I said, part of these expenses will be assumed by will be derived from the price.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. Our next question is from Gerard Fort, from AFP Integra. Could you help us understand why Pacasmayo had to recognize the PEN 77 million-PEN 80 million in expenses related to the Holcim transaction, considering that Holcim is acquiring ASPI's majority stake, not the company itself, and the deal is still pending approval, pending INDECOPI approval? What obligations required Pacasmayo to incur these costs?

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Like I said, this was discussed in the board, and we decided to be done like this. We don't foresee any impediments by the authority. I mean, we're very respectful of all the legal framework, and we think this will be approved. And this was a decision that, like, like I say, this has to do with contracts that were already in place for many, many years. That had to do with the change of control.

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much.

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

And if I may add, it should be like, I mean, as we are all aware, after this transaction of buying ASPI, Holcim is required by law to launch an OPA for part of the remaining shares. So, the board considers this a transaction that will benefit all shareholders, not only the controlling shareholder. And the price has to be at least the price that was paid for the controlling shares.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, it's star two if you're connected from the phone. If you're connected from the web, you can ask a voice or send a text question. We'll give it a few more moments for any further questions. Okay, we have a question from Gabriel Ramos, from Kallpa. Given the pause of the Motupe Riverbank Protection Project and its impact on volumes and margins in the fourth quarter of 2025, should we expect similar project-related disruptions or margin pressures in the coming quarters? Additionally, how could this affect concrete, pavement, and mortar performance and overall margins looking into 2026?

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

I think margins, I mean, every concrete project has its particular reality. Margins looking forward, we think EBITDA margins should remain at the levels we have achieved over the last year, maybe a little bit higher. We have some energy-saving projects coming in the second quarter or the second semester of this year that should enhance margins. So we are, we have a very positive outlook in what's gonna happen in the coming in this year with the margins. And also we have to, we hope that the authorities usually start spending slow at the beginning of the year. We have elections coming up in two months. I mean, this should probably pick up after the second, third quarter of this year.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We have a follow-up from Gerard Fort, from AFP Integra. Could you provide any guidance on revenue growth and EBITDA margins expected for 2026?

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Well, what we can say, I mean, we achieved a record EBITDA year in 2025, and we perceive that this year should be stronger than the last one in terms of volumes. We also think our price will remain in a very competitive state, as they have been giving us very good margins. So the results coming going forward, we are optimistic about the volume growth for the year, and we are also very optimistic that the EBITDA margins will remain stable by pointing towards an increase due to some efficiencies, like I mentioned, energy among them, in the second semester of the year.

Operator (participant)

Okay, thank you very much. We would like to thank everyone for the questions and the participation. I'll now hand it to Humberto for the closing remarks.

Humberto Nadal (CEO)

Thank you. We are indeed deeply proud that a global leader such as Holcim has placed its trust in Pacasmayo, and more importantly, in Peru. This investment is a very strong validation of what we have long believed and consistently communicated, that Peru's long-term growth potential remains solid, and that the country offers meaningful opportunities for sustainable development and value creation. I think as CEO, this is a consequence of the effort displayed by thousands of employees over years, and we are all extremely proud of this transaction. I'm sure this will bring only good news for all stakeholders, the shareholders, the employees, our communities, and the country. Thank you, everybody, for today, and always thank you for your renewed interest in our company. Have a very nice day.

Operator (participant)

We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and have a nice day.