JBS - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning everyone. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to JBS S.A. and JBS USA first quarter of 2023 results conference call. With us here today we have Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO of JBS; Guilherme Cavalcanti, Global CFO of JBS; Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA; and Christiane Assis, Investor Relations Director. This event is being recorded. All participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation.

After JBS remarks, there will be a question and answer session. At the time, further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of JBS management. They involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.

Now, I will turn the conference over to Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO of JBS. Mr. Tomazoni, you may begin your presentation.

Gilberto Tomazoni (Global CEO)

Good morning everyone. Thank you for parting of this earnings call. We started 2023 facing many challenges, but our global and diversified platforms continues to be a fortress, especially when we look at a full year. With the operational management measures and significant improvement in the outlook, we can see more positive performance in line with our potential.

As we pointed in our last quarter, this period faces a high input cost, persistent inflation and supply and demand imbalancing. In addition, being a traditional weaker period for the global protein industry, all necessary action to reduce the impact of these circumstances have been taken. Beyond market conditions, two business were particularly impacted this quarter, Beef USA and Seara. In the United States, we faces high cattle prices and a compression of margins.

Commercial and industrial performance fell below our expectations, which are issues that we have already been addressed. In Seara, we facing a challenging of falling pricing and export, high grain cost and low productivity in agriculture, which impacted cost and volume. We have taken measures to reverse productivity in the field, the cost of grain is already show more favorable results.

The increase in our leverage was already the expected, due to the normalization of margins. The company prepared for this scenario by extending the average terms and reducing the cost of debt, improve liquidity through the increase the revolving credit lines and align bond clause, which is the lasted issues when the company was already the investment grade. We do not have any significant maturities until 2027.

We have already identified the potential to release $1.2 billion in working capital. In the upcoming quarter, we expect better conditions in several important market. In U.S., the market is historically stronger with the grilling season approaching when the consumption of protein and the value-added product is heightened.

Global logistic conditions are also improving with a reduction in container costs boding well for the Asian exports. A significant decrease in corn meal and soybean price is ongoing in important producing market, which has positive impact in our poultry and pork operation globally. In Australia, the cattle cycle is starting to show favorable signs with continuous improvement in supply expected throughout 2023.

In Brazil, resumption of China export, new export authorization in Canada, Philippines, and Mexico, as well as a strengthened domestic supplier relationship programs provide the Brazilian business beef with much better outlook for the months ahead. Our diversification strategy has been complemented in recent years by our investment in value-add products and a strong brand in the countries where we operate.

In the last 12 years, during which we have already had a global platform, this is the first quarter that we have faced adversity in almost all countries where we operate. This makes us believe more than ever that our team members in our geographical and protein diversifications, our grace is strengthened, especially during the challenge times. It's clear that this year first quarter does not reflect the potential of our business and even less what we expect from this year.

This first quarter in 2023 is an outlier. Guilherme Cavalcanti will now explain our results in more detail. Thank you.

Guilherme Cavalcanti (Global CFO)

Thank you, Tomazoni. Let's go over the operational and financial highlights for the quarter, starting on slide 12, please. Before moving on to the consolidated results, I would like to start by highlighting the ongoing work in liability management that we continue to carry out. In April, we issued senior notes at Pilgrim's Pride for a total amount of $1 billion with a 10-year maturity, a coupon of 6.25% and being significantly oversubscribed.

With the proceeds, we fully paid the PPC Term Loan B in the amount of $473 million, reducing the company's secured debt to below 1%. As a result, our average maturity of our debt increases to 10 years, against eight years in the same period of last year. Now, let's move on to slide 13, where we have the operational and financial highlights for the quarter.

Net revenue for the first quarter was $17 billion. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $416 billion and represents a margin of 2.5% for the quarter. Net loss was $280 million for the quarter. As we mentioned in our last earnings call, these results reflected challenging market conditions in a conventionally weaker quarter for the global protein industry.

We maintain our confidence in the gradual recovery of our results in the following months, based on our strategy of geographic and protein diversification and the growth of protein consumption in the coming years. Some short-term key indicators such as grain prices, the rebalancing of global supply and demand for poultry, the larger herd of cattle in Australia and Brazil, among others, already start to positively impact results. Please, now moving to slide 14.

The operational cash flow in the quarter was negative by $586 million due to the reduction in the EBITDA margin. Working capital consumption was $959 million, a significant reduction when compared to the consumption of $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2022. Over the coming quarters of this year, we have the potential to release working capital considering the current levels, which, depending on market condition and grain prices, could more than offset the first quarter consumption.

More specifically, $440 million seasonal impact of deferred livestocks payments that happens every year from December to January, and therefore tends to revert in the last quarter. $185 million in taxes to be refunded throughout the year. $85 million in U.S., and $100 million of monetization of tax credits in Brazil. $100 million from inventory reductions due to the reduction in corn and soybean new prices, and in a scenario where grain prices do not rise, bear in mind that future curves indicate a decline, we could potentially release an additional $120 million. $100 million reduction in biological assets also due to the reduction in grain prices, and $250 million from finished goods inventory reduction.

Not characterizing a guidance, we have the potential to release approximately $1.2 billion in the following quarters. Free cash flow for the quarter was -$1.2 billion, against a -$526 million in the first quarter of 2022. The first quarter has seasonally the characteristic of consuming cash due to the concentration of payments from cattle and pork suppliers and restocking of inventories, mainly in grains, mentioned in the previous item. I will go into more detail about this cash consumption in the change of the net debt on the next slide, please.

Moving on to slide 15, we have the evolution of our debt profile. Net debt ended the first quarter of 2023 at $16.5 billion, an increase of $1.3 billion against last quarter, explained primarily by consumption of working cattle of $959 million. The main consumption was in the suppliers account, given the concentration of payments in the first quarter due to the payment of the deferred balance of livestock, both in U.S. and in Brazil.

CapEx totaling $331 million, which is already $85 million below the first quarter of 2022, and in line with the full year estimate of $1.3 billion, which would be 40% below the full year 2022. Expansion CapEx accounted for 55% of the total in this quarter. Net interest expenses for the quarter was $263 million. Considering new debt issuance, the increase in interest expenses on the short-term burden debt, which corresponds to 13% of our total debt and the increase in inflation measure, measured by IPC, which indexes 10% of our debt in the form of Agribusiness Receivables Certificates, the projected financial expenses for the year is $1 billion.

It's worth mentioning that 78% of our debt is in the form of senior notes with a fixed interest rate. Additionally, estimated lease payments for the year are $450 million. Therefore, if we add the working capital, financial expenses, and CapEx numbers mentioned above, an estimated EBITDA to reach a break-even free cash flow would be below $3 billion.

On this slide, we also have our cash and debt payment schedule in a pro forma view, that is already considering the issuing of Pilgrim's Senior Notes in April. With that represent a total liquidity of $5.5 billion, of which $3.2 billion in revolving credit facilities and $2.2 billion in cash.

Short-term debt rose to $1.9 billion as the cash burn was covered with $550 million of trade finance and $750 million of cash use. In relation to the long-term debt, the most significant payment only happens in 2027, which $850 million are PPC Senior Note that is already callable and has a reduction in its call price in September of this year.

Amortizations above $1.5 billion are only after 2030, above $2.5 billion only after 2032. We have $2.8 billion maturing in 2052. The debt allocated to Brazil represents 22% of the company's total debt, which is in line with debt the region's EBITDA generation.

Debt in Reais represents 12.5% in line with the proportion of the company's revenues in Reais. The average cost in Reais are 13%, which is below the current Selic rate of 13.75%. The average cost of the debt in US dollars stood at 4.83%, also below the current Fed Funds rates of 5.25%. Let's quickly go through the business units. Starting with Seara on slide 16, net revenue for the quarter grew 9% in the first quarter as a result of rising prices and volumes.

On the other hand, the quarter's profitability was pressured by a production cost which remained high during the year, alongside a scenario of global chicken oversupply. However, in the domestic market, the highlight was the prepared foods category, which sales grew by 13%.

To further strengthen the value-added portfolio, we inaugurated the largest and most automated JBS plant for the production of battered chicken products in Holambra. In addition, investments in the brand, innovation, and quality continues to reap good results. We are already present in 90% of Brazilian households, and the repurchase rate continues to grow quarter after quarter.

Moving now to slide 17, JBS Brasil record a reduction in net revenues of 15% year-over-year. Sales and profitability were pressured by the Brazilian self-embargo on beef exports to China, which is the main destination for the protein in the international market, which lasted approximately one month. Part of these volumes were absorbed by other markets, including the domestic market, whose volumes grew, supported by the various initiatives to improve commercial execution.

Moving on to slide 18 and speaking now in dollars and in U.S. GAAP, net revenue for JBS Beef North America decreased by 4.9% year-over-year in the quarter, and the EBITDA margin was -0.4%. As expected, the results reflected the turn of the cattle cycle, reducing the availability of animals for processing. Live cattle prices, according to the USDA, grew 16% in the period, while wholesale prices grew only 2%, pressuring profitability.

Moving on to slide 19, we have JBS Australia. Net revenue fell 1.6% in the first quarter of 2023 year-over-year, impacted by exchange variation as sales grew 4% year-over-year in local currency, explained by the higher volume sold in the domestic market and growing demand from Asia markets.

However, profitability was pressured by beef segment, the largest segment in Australia, as the price of live cattle available in feedlots was still at high levels during the first quarter. Better prices are already being observed given the greater availability of animals.

Moving on to JBS USA Pork. Net revenue for the quarter was 5% lower compared to first quarter 2022. The oversupply of hogs in the domestic markets linked to the high cost of grains pressured the results for the period. According to the USDA, exports grew 12% year-over-year in the quarter, mainly to Mexico and Asia. I also like to highlight the opening of January's JBS first specialty meat plant in the U.S., in line with the company's strategy of expanding its value-added portfolio.

Pilgrim's Pride on slide 21 presented a reduction in net revenues of 1.8% in the quarter compared to last year. In the USA, despite a still adverse scenario in the price of products for the use of raw materials, the big birds we were able to partially offset profitability through a more diversified branded portfolio and our partnerships with key customers.

In Mexico, the normalization of supply and demand, coupled with better commercial execution, returned profitability to the historical levels of the quarter. Finally, in Europe, the improvement in profitability is a consequence of the implementation of several actions aimed at operational and commercial improvements that were initiated last year. With that, I would like to open to our question and answer session.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, please press star two. Our first question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

Ben Theurer (Managing Director)

Yeah. Good morning, Tomazoni, Gui. Two to three things I wanted to try to dig in and get a little bit more of a sense. Clearly, Seara for the quarter, I guess it was one of the weakest quarter ever, and you've called out a few things that just went against you in the first quarter. Help me understand how we should think about the recovery for the coming quarters. How do you think about the improvement here as it relates to some of the cost relief that is expected to happening just from grain?

You've called out the global protein oversupply impacting some of the export markets. Are you seeing improvements there? Just so we understand a little bit where Seara is heading to, and then I'll go into my next question set I had. Thank you.

Gilberto Tomazoni (Global CEO)

Hi, Ben. Thank you for the question. Seara had two main challenge. First of all was the international price for export and this price the beginning of the year was very depressed. It start to recover in practically all of the markets. It was the first. The second was that internal issue. We face low productivity in the our farms. It is an issue that has been already addressed. This, in terms of the external market, in terms of the price, its price is recovering now. It depends of market to market. In domestic in the issue, internal issue we had, this impacted around 3%-4% our EBITDA of Seara. This is already addressed.

Of course, there is a time to get all of the benefit in the results. It's one important point. Second, that the cost of the grain was high in the first quarter. Now the corn dropped 40% in 15 days in Brazil, which is a huge impact in terms of our cost, and that will be kept by Seara in the coming months. It's important to separate that Seara is going very well. Chicken is important business in Seara. It had impact in terms of price, external price and domestic, and the cost of the operation, and these are that. When you look for value added, we have been growing very well.

We grow 30% if you're, as Gui had mentioned. We increase price, and now we get all the benefit from this reduction of the cost of the grains.

Ben Theurer (Managing Director)

Okay. Perfect. That's very clear. Thanks for that, Tomazoni. My second topic really is, I mean, as you've highlighted at the beginning, two issues, Seara and U.S. Beef. Talking about U.S. Beef, obviously, it was a very soft quarter with an EBITDA already negative in that quarter. You said there is improvement coming as it relates to summer, just to get the grilling season more demand for some of the higher value things. Help me understand if once we looked at industry data during the first quarter, the cut-out didn't look too bad and the ratio just because of what the value was on beef prices versus the cattle cost.

Obviously not as great as maybe a year ago, but it actually looked better sequentially, and it got worse sequentially. Help us understand what particularly brought you into negative territory into the first quarter versus what industry would have suggested a slight improvement versus the fourth quarter?

Wesley Batista Filho (CEO)

Yeah. Morning, Ben. For sure the first quarter was a challenged quarter, like you said, compared to last year for sure, and overall was a tough quarter. Having said that, like we said in the Brazilian call and the Portuguese call and what Tomazoni said right now, we had some internal challenges. We do not think that the result shows what the potential of the margin was for even given this, the market conditions. We estimate then that we probably have between, you know, 2 or 3 percentage points

In our results that we could improve internally. This is regardless of the market conditions. We can improve this, and we're working to get that done. Outlook, we're forecasting that second quarter, third quarter for sure because of market, you know, seasonality will be better. We're probably gonna see some of those results out of that 2% or 3%. We're probably gonna see more of that number into third quarter, fourth quarter, us improving back to what our performance should be.

Ben Theurer (Managing Director)

Okay.

Wesley Batista Filho (CEO)

Just to give you some more color on that, those improvements come, a part of it, a relevant part of it comes from our operations, but also part of it comes from our, from commercial challenges, which would explain part of the result, given that, like you said, cut out from fourth quarter to first quarter wasn't bad.

Ben Theurer (Managing Director)

Okay. Thanks for that, Wesley. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Priya Ohri-Gupta with Barclays.

Priya Ohri-Gupta (Co-Head of US High Grade Research)

Great. Thank you so much for taking the question, and for helping us understand sort of how to think about the flow-through of that 2-3 percentage points margin improvement. I guess if we could go back to maybe the free cash flow point, that $1.2 billion of working capital relief that you highlighted, should sort of more than offset what we've seen so far. I guess if we bring it back to your full year cash flow expectation, on the last call, we had talked about sort of this year being, you know, potentially sort of breakeven to even slightly better, in terms of free cash flow. Is that still the expectation, particularly given that working capital relief? I have a follow-up on that.

Guilherme Cavalcanti (Global CFO)

Hi, Priya. Let me clarify. We don't give guidance, it's not that we expect a breakeven. What I say is a breakeven analysis that we do, we showed that an EBITDA to reach a breakeven has to be lower than $3 billion. That's on a breakeven analysis. Investors do each, their own estimation of EBITDA to see how much will be the free cash flow. The expenses that we are estimating is that $1 billion of net interest expenses. $550 million of leasing. $1.3 billion capital expenditures.

We reach to the working capital, which we consumed $1 billion in the first quarter, and we expect to release $1.2 billion throughout the year. Working capital would be around zero. With that, we see that in order to reach the breakeven, EBITDA should be below $3 billion. Of course, we don't give guidance. Everybody, you have your own estimations or EBITDA, and you see the difference from these expenses which are highlighted here. Of course, depends on market conditions and grain prices.

Priya Ohri-Gupta (Co-Head of US High Grade Research)

Okay. That's helpful. I think what I was referring to was sort of part of the discussion around your dividend payment. That was gonna be my next question, which is, you know, I think the expectation previously had been that there was potential for you to generate enough cash after the CapEx that you could potentially consider paying a dividend this year.

Given sort of Brazilian laws, you don't have to make a dividend payment this year. If we could just sort of get an update on what you're thinking around the dividend, given where your leverage is right now, you know, whether there's any scope to maybe bring down that $1.3 billion of CapEx as you manage cash flow, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Guilherme Cavalcanti (Global CFO)

Okay, Priya. In order to address your point of the Brazilian corporate law, the breakeven analysis that I made for free cash flow, you can basically replicate that to net profit. Basically because our depreciation is more or less the CapEx plus the leasing, 'cause the leasing comes as an IFRS as a depreciation expense. Net profit, EBITDA below $3 billion, that would be the breakeven for net profit again. Any EBITDA over $3 billion, we would be generating net profit, which by Brazilian corporate law, we will have to pay 25%. However, we've been anticipating dividends every year. Last year we anticipated $900 million in dividends.

Depending on the expectations, for the year and for the next year, if we and we have access to credit, we could do the same. There's no decision on that. We have the financial flexibility to anticipate the dividends if we want to do. This is a decision that we are doing. We are not repurchasing shares. You mentioned about leverage. It's also worth to mention that the leverage this quarter increased by the increase in the numerator, the $1.2 billion of cash consumption. That increase in the debt, but the major effect was a lower EBITDA when we took out last year's quarter.

Next, on the next two quarters, we think that we won't have the impact on the numerator because we're probably generating free cash flow throughout the year. The numerator will have impact on the second and third quarter. On the fourth quarter, where we already have margins normalized, we will start to see leverage decreasing by the free cash flow generation. That's more or less what we have here.

Priya Ohri-Gupta (Co-Head of US High Grade Research)

Can you give us any indication of how high you expect EBITDA to or leverage to peak out at over the next two quarters before it starts to come down?

Guilherme Cavalcanti (Global CFO)

We don't give guidance. You can get the market consensus and our estimates for the market and then, and see how much will be the difference from this year's quarter with the previous years.

Priya Ohri-Gupta (Co-Head of US High Grade Research)

Is it fair, given your assumption, that we should start to see it come down in the fourth quarter, that sort of any extra actions wouldn't be necessary at this point, given sort of the direction that the leverage is moving in?

Guilherme Cavalcanti (Global CFO)

Exactly. No extra action would be needed. I would only need to access markets through bonds or bilateral loans if we decide to anticipate the dividends. Otherwise, we don't need to go to the market for any capital raising.

Priya Ohri-Gupta (Co-Head of US High Grade Research)

Okay, thank you. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to invite Mr. Tomazoni to proceed with his closing statements.

Gilberto Tomazoni (Global CEO)

Yes.

Operator (participant)

Please go ahead, sir.

Gilberto Tomazoni (Global CEO)

I thank you all, once again for your presence and want to close with the words to thank our 260,000 team members around the world for their commitment and dedication during this challenge period. We are confident in our diverse global platform, and I will continue to work hard to deliver value to all stakeholders. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude the JBS audio conference for today. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a good day, and thank you for using Chorus Call.