Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Azure's third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. My name is Elaine, and I will be your operator. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question and answer session towards the end of today's conference. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. If you want to withdraw your question at any time, by please pressing star followed by two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before making a selection. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Adolfo Castro, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Elaine. And good morning, everyone. Before we started the covering of the highlights from the quarter and then taking your questions, let me remind you that certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements, which are based on current management expectations and beliefs and are subject to several risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including factors that may be beyond our company's control. As usual, additional details about our quarterly results can be found in our press release, which was issued yesterday after market closed and is available on our website in the Better Relations section. We reported another solid quarter with record passenger traffic, improved cost efficiencies, and strong profitability. Starting with our review of travel demand, total traffic growth over 24% year-on-year and exceeded third quarter 2019 levels by nearly 23%, reaching a record of 17 million passengers in the third quarter. Airports across our three geographies all contributed to this solid growth. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, third quarter 2019, Colombia maintained the strongest recovery of 37% with domestic travel expanding in the low 30s and international travel in the high 50s. We expected this surprisingly strong recovery to continue over the coming months, supported by a structural shift in demand driven by new routes and airlines. Traffic in Mexico was up 22% against third quarter 2019 driven by both international and domestic passengers. with all the airports contributing to this growth. In particular, international traffic growth accelerated to 30%. This strong performance reflects higher travel demand from all regions of this market, exceeding 2019 levels, except Canadian demand, which still remains at slightly over 65% of the last 12 months of 2019. Looking ahead, traffic from Canada is expected to resume its winter season levels, mainly November through April next year, while the U.S. and Europe are expected to continue delivering steady growth. We also expect that domestic business travel will continue to lack leisure. We expect Merida Airport to recover 2019 levels during the rest of the year, with Veracruz, Minatitlan, and Villahermosa Airports recovering in 2023. Finally, in Puerto Rico, traffic continued to normalize after a very strong performance in prior quarters, posting a high single-digit increase in traffic compared with the quarter 2019, with domestic passengers up 9%, and international travel practically recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Overall, we continue to expect solid traffic demand, underscored by pent-up travel demand, with recoveries expected in some remaining markets, such as Canada, helping mitigate any potential disacceleration that could result from increasing inflationary global context. Moving now to our financial results, note that all reference to revenues and costs exclude construction revenues and that all comparisons are against the quarter 2019 levels. Revenues increased 50% to $5.8 billion. This was again a record high for any given quarter, driven by a good performance in both aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenues across geographies. Mexico accounted 72% of total revenues in the quarter, Puerto Rico 16, and Colombia 12. Reported by traffic growth, commercial revenues remain strong, up 45% with increases of 57% in Mexico, 30% in Colombia, and nearly doubling in Puerto Rico. Commercial revenues per passenger were nearly 117 pesos above the 99 pesos reported in TechWater 2019, a nearly flat year on year. Commercial revenues in the quarter were in the range of 141 to 161 pesos in Mexico and Puerto Rico. In Colombia, commercial revenues per passenger stood at 37 pesos, likely below third quarter 2019 levels. Note that the Colombian peso depreciated 24% against the Mexican peso over the last 12 months, while international passengers account for nearly 17% of total traffic in Colombia. Regarding the composition of our passenger traffic, the portion of domestic passengers remained the same as the third quarter 2019, although We benefited from additional growth in the U.S. tourism and from European passengers spending at pre-pandemic levels. The number of Canadian visitors remained flat at 65.5 of 2019 levels. Moving down to the P&L, total operating expenses increased in the high teens, excluding expense reimbursements in Puerto Rico in both quarters, Operating costs and expenses would have increased nearly 26%, but significantly below the revenue growth of 50%. In Mexico, costs were up 26%, significantly below the 67% increase in revenues. This was mainly driven by increased personal costs, along with higher technical assistance and concession fees. These increases reflect high revenues and EBITDA, along with a higher cost of services, including the cost of sales that rose as a result of the strong performance at directly operated stores. In Puerto Rico, costs were up 19% or 16% when excluding the benefit of expensing rembourses in both quarters, while revenues nearly doubled in this market. Finally, costs in Colombia were up in the low 20s, but below the 30% revenue growth. Efficiency measures implemented over the past couple of years have allowed costs under our control to remain at third quarter 2019 levels and at only 81% of these levels when compared them on a per passenger basis. This was true even with a 50% increase in revenues during the period. Note that costs under our control include costs minus construction costs, depreciation, and amortization, as well as technical and concession fees. We achieved a record high profitability this quarter with consolidated adjusted EBDA of 4.1 billion pesos. up 64% from 2019 levels, driven by solid performance across key metrics. Sustained growth in passenger traffic together with higher commercial revenues and operating leverage more than offset higher tariffs. Mexico turned into a very strong performance with adjusted EVA up 51% to 3.1 billion pesos. Colombia continued to recover with EVDA up 67% to 455 million pesos. Puerto Rico, in turn, posted a 7% increase in EVDA to nearly 470 million pesos, although down 16% year-on-year, reflecting the 7% decrease in passenger traffic and increasing the cost of services primarily because of increasing the cost of energy. A geographic region adjusted India margin improved nearly 5 percentage points in Mexico to 75.3 and 10 percentage points in Colombia to nearly 64. Margin in Puerto Rico was slightly over 49% this quarter, 70 basis points above third quarter 2019, but below the 59% reported in the same quarter last year, reflecting the impact of Hurricane Fiona during the the airport for a day and a half. In sum, we reported another solid quarter with traffic and revenues at record highs, which combined with the operating leverage resulted in a 42% increase in net majority income to 2.5 billion pesos in the quarter, up from 1.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021 and 1.3 billion in the third quarter of 2019. Turning to CapEx, we invested nearly 550 million pesos during the quarter, of which 88% was allocated to Mexico, nearly 12% to Puerto Rico, and 1 billion pesos to Colombia. We remain on track with our CapEx plan across the regions. In Mexico, we completed the first phase of Terminal 4 expansion at Cancun Airport, which consisted of adding two international boarding gates And we continue moving forward with the expansion of terminal building in Merida with the third phase of this project to be completed by the year end. We are also on track with the remodeling of terminal B and major maintenance repairs to runways and taxiways in Puerto Rico. Commenting on the balance sheet, we've maintained a strong liquidity position and a healthy debt profile. We closed the quarter with cash and cash equivalents, nearly 14 billion pesos with a net debt last month's EVA at just 0.1 times at the quarter end, with interest coverage at 10.7 times. Finally, across receivables, increased nearly 17% year-on-year, reflecting increased activity across our airports. Before we move to the Q&A portion of the call, A quick recap of the quarter. We welcomed another record number of passengers in the third quarter, surpassing 2019 levels once again, thanks to robust travel spend. While Canadian traffic remained below its pre-pandemic levels, traffic in all the markets was above 2019 levels. Also, we expect Canadian traffic will finally normalize this winter season, Such a recovery would help offset any fall in demand that could eventually arise from the inflationary environment that persists in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere in the world. As today, we see healthy traffic trends that are supported by a still strong pent-up demand. Lastly, I noted earlier we were able to deliver strong profitability as additional passenger growth drove operating leverage that we have achieved by significantly improving efficiency levels throughout our business over the last two years and a half. Please, Elaine, open the call for questions.

Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star 1. And again, please make sure your mute function is turned off or your handset is picked up before pressing the corresponding digits. We will take our first question today from Rodolfo Ramos of Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Adolfo. Thank you for taking my question. I have a couple. The first one is on your outlook for traffic International has been clearly the leader here, and given your expectation of this pent-up demand from Canada, it seems that that will continue to be the case. But just wanted to get your thoughts on the domestic side. Volaris reported earnings, and it seems like they're having a little bit of trouble getting down with fares. It seems like there's a high level of elasticity there. demand for leisure destinations on the domestic side. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on that side, on the domestic traffic recovery. How do you expect this to evolve in this winter season? And then I have a second question as well, if I may.

Yes, Rodolfo. Hi, good morning. Well, in the case of domestic and basically in the case of Mexico, because you mentioned Bolares, It's very clear for me that leisure is above what we call business traffic. Business traffic in our case is capital cities. I just mentioned the case of Merida that has been recovering very nice over the last couple of months, which is not the case of Veracruz and Villahermosa and Minatitlan. I do not expect them to recover until next year. So we will suffer in that sense, not being able to recover 2019 levels. But in the case of tourism, I'm very confident that we will keep in the way that we have been for the last couple of months. It's important to mention, and if you see the reports, the passenger traffic reports, Try to compare the passenger traffic in the case of Mexico for total traffic in January 2022 versus September 2022. Normally, in the case of tourism, September is the lowest month of the year. Let's try to see seasonality in the previous years, and you will understand why I am saying this. So when you see the comparison between January and February, you will understand that we still have some room to increase in the first quarter next year.

Thank you. And secondly, on your MDP, I mean, it's still early. It'll be concluded next year. But just wanted to get your thoughts if you've seen any changes on the process. And if you're still, you know, looking to incorporate the potential impact of a Tulum airport potentially starting operations in 24. Thanks.

Well, the MDP, once we close the quarter, we will go and work very hard to be able to deliver our proposal by the year to the government. I don't see any changes in the process, and of course, what you're mentioning is in will be included in our proposal.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. We move now to Alessandro Zamacona of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Apologies. We're moving to Philippe Nielsen of Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks. So, good morning or afternoon, all. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two on my side. The first question would be, what long-term opportunities do you see in terms of increasing commercial revenue per passenger in Colombia? I noticed that you mentioned about peso contributing negatively, but I wanted to have a little more color on your initiatives on that. And the second question would be if you have any color on new airport auctions and studies, opportunities for outside Mexico for new airports. Thank you.

Okay, good morning. As I mentioned in the initial remarks, we face 24% Colombian peso devaluation versus Mexican peso. So if you include these variables in the results of Colombia, you will understand why The growth in Colombia, apart, it was very small, but if you see that in Colombian pesos, it was very strong. In terms of initiatives, you can see in the report what we have done in the case of Colombia over the last year, year and a half, and you will find out that we have made a lot of initiatives in the case of Colombia. We're happy of those. We are seeing some result, of course. The devaluation of the Colombian pension had an impact, severe impact in the case of the report. In terms of new opportunities outside Mexico, I don't see any significant in front of me today.

Great, great, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. We now move to Gabriel Himelfarb of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the call. Just a quick question. Could you give us a bit of cover about the maximum tariff, about how much are you, what percentage are you this year, and do you think that Under current inflation conditions, it could impact or have some effect on the master development, on the next master development plan. Thank you.

In the case of the maximum rate, of course, you can follow or trace these in quarterly reports. There's a specific paragraph to that. You can see the weighted average maximum rate for the quarter. And if you follow these, you will find out that there was an increase in the quarter. But of course, with the high inflation situation we are now, I can estimate that we are not going to be able to reach the 99.8 max tar compliance that we used to. We have made that catch-up from last year, but it will not be enough to... the high nutrition that we are seeing now. And I don't see any impact of that during the next MPP.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. We now move our next question to Anton Morton-Cotter of GBM. Please go ahead.

Hi, Adolfo. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats on your results. You guys had a really strong cash flow generation. I think it should continue like that going forward. You've reached a really high cash balance, but still you raised some debt in Puerto Rico. I was wondering if you could share some color on that. Do you have any plans or or any CAPEC commitments in the near term?

All right. Good morning, Anton. Thank you for your words. You're right. We are very strong in terms of cash flow. As we said in the report, it's 14-something billion. Next year, CAPEC's program for the case of Mexico is not so important. In the case of Puerto Rico, it could be more than what we had this year. And we will have to think about what are we going to do during the end of the year and then to propose something to the board of directors and then to Chevrolet's assembly on what are we going to do with this cash precision.

Okay. I mean, is this capital allocation strategy maybe more tilted into looking to distribute or making an extra net dividend? Or are you guys looking into potential acquisitions or something?

We are always looking for potential acquisitions. And as I said before, I do not have anything significant in front of me for now.

Okay, and if I may, just a quick one. Do you expect more benefits from the ARPA law?

I'm sorry?

Do you expect any more cost reimbursements from the ARPA law as the one you had this quarter?

I cannot understand your question. ARPA law, what's that?

No, the ARPA, the cost reimbursements. Ah, okay. Yeah.

There should be a small piece in front of us. Of course, we will have to make the application and see if that is approved or not.

Okay, pretty clear. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1. We will now take a question from Andresa Feroto of UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, Adolfo. Good morning. Congratulations on the results. I have two questions on my end. The first one is on the category one. I know that ASU is not directly impacted by that, but if you could give us a call on what you've been seeing around Mexico's work to recover the category one titles would be great. And my second question is your expectations on international traffic trends. If you believe that dependent demand is over for now and we could see some international traffic acceleration from now onwards. These are my two questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Andressa, for your words. In case of Category 1, they are the less affected, and I would say almost no affected, because our efforts are destination efforts. Basically, the tourist come to Cancun in an international airline and not in a domestic airline. In some years, there was a press release where we basically expressed that 0.5% of our total traffic was traveling in a Mexican airline to the U.S. So that was in 2020. So I don't see major impact in our case. The government is working to try to recover Category 1. There was a change in the head of the aeronautical offices a week ago. And what they have expressed is that the objective of this new person is to recover category one in the short term. So my expectation is that we will be, we as a country, we will be able to recuperate that up to the first half of next year. In the case of international traffic trends, everything is working well. All the regions have recovered 2019 levels, with the exception of Canada, that I just mentioned in my initial remarks. As I said, today, over the last 12 months, Canada is still 65% of 2019 levels. I'm expecting them to come back to the country because they were affected last winter season. Normally, they travel from November to April, so Last winter season, they were affected by Omicron. And I hope that this year, there will be no more effects of COVID situation. So that's why I'm still very positive of the situation. The maximum amount of Canadians we have seen in the past is 2.7 million. So then you can make the math of how many of those we are... away from 2019 levels.

Great. That's perfect. Thank you. Have a good day.

You're welcome.

Thank you. We now move our next question to Alejandro Zamacona of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, Adolfo. Thank you for the call. Sorry if these questions have been already asked. I got disconnected, but I was just wondering if you can share some thoughts on the cost of service in Puerto Rico. We saw a significant increase, and we were wondering if this increase was related to Chirica and Fiona, and what could we expect going forward?

Alejandro, yes, you're right. We're seeing some increases in the cost of services of Puerto Rico. And I said during the initial remarks, one of the most important elements here was the cost of energy. We had also on top of that an effect because of Fiona, because the energy was out from the grid and we had to to operate with emergency energy for some days, almost a week, and that, of course, has an effect on the cost of services. In general, I would say, yes, we are seeing some effects of the inflationary situation we are living now in the whole world.

Okay, but is it fair to assume that you have non-recurrent expenses to be disqualified related to the European PMR? What can we expect for costs going forward?

Well, that will depend on the cost of energy. I don't see that the cost of energy will decrease in the short term. So, in that sense... even that we had a one-time effect because of Fiona, in general terms, I would say that we will see more or less the same numbers in the front.

Okay. Thank you, Adolfo. Then my second question, if I may, on the NDP, I mean, I know it's quite early yet, but Do you have any color on the CAPEX that you are planning to commute for the next five years period?

We're in the process and we do not have final figures yet. The only thing that I can say to you is that the most important expansion project will have to occur in the case of Cancun Aircraft.

Okay. Thank you, Adolfo.

You're welcome.

Thank you. We move to Guillem Mendes of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, Adolfo. Good morning. Two follow-up questions. The first one in terms of traffic. I mean, looking beyond 2023, so more of a long-term perspective, Do you expect traffic, especially in Mexico, to be back to the historical levels we saw over the past 10, 15 years? And the second question is regarding margins. It's kind of a follow-up question from the previous one. So thinking these additional pressure on energy costs, et cetera, it's fair to assume the margins will remain below the 70% margins going forward. Thanks. Good morning.

Well, I will recommend you to forecast the revenue and the cost in a separate or independent way. I do not recommend you to forecast with margins. But of course, if revenues, well, if passenger traffic grows and revenue grows, I'm confident that that will grow more than what the cost side will do.

Okay, got it. And in terms of the traffic in the longer term?

Well, if you see what has occurred in the past, there's some charts. You have a lot of figures, traffic for the last 22 years at least. And if you see the climbing before an event, let's say September 11, the Hurricane Vilma, the swine flu, close financial crisis in the U.S., and now COVID. The timing has been that after the event is more or less the same as it was before. So now you can see the adjustment that we have seen in the case of Puerto Rico that we have anticipated. We are starting the adjustment in the case of Mexico, and Colombia is the only one that's still very steep, let's say almost vertical, and that's why I said in the initial remarks that I'm still confident that we will see some months before we start seeing the adjustment.

Okay, super clear. Thanks. Have a good day. You too.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1. We have a follow-up question from Adressa Verotto of UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, Adolfo. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. Just very quickly on the commercial revenue side, we talk sometimes that non-aeronautical revenue per passenger is stabilizing. Do you see this current level as a normalized level going forward? Thank you.

Yes, we saw some adjustments. We see that in terms of the adjustment in the current case of parking law, apart from what I just mentioned in the case of Colombia, because of the 24% devaluation of the Colombian peso versus the Mexican peso. These two activities were affected during the quarter. If you remember, we were calling these COVID behavior, and now apparently what we are seeing is a change in trend. We will have to wait next quarter to see if that is definitive or it will continue as it was before.

Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. That concludes the question-and-answer portion of today's conference call. I would like to turn it back over to Mr. Castro for additional or closing remarks.

Thank you, Elaine, and thank you, all of you, again, for participating in our third quarter

results conference call on behalf of ASUR we wish you a good day goodbye thank you ladies and gentlemen that will conclude today's conference call thank you for your participation you may now