Cementos Pacasmayo S.A.A.

Patients, your conference will begin shortly. Once again, thank you for your patience. Your conference will begin shortly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Cementos Pacas Mayo's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on 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 our host for today, Ms. Claudia Bustamante, Investor Relations Manager. Ms. Bustamante, you may begin.

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today is Mr. Humberto Nadal, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Manuel Ferreiros, 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. Mr. Ferreiros 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 this risk are set forth in the company's regulatory filings. With that, I now would like to turn the call over to Mr. Edgar Canales.

Thank you, Claudia. Welcome, everyone, to today's conference call. This quarter, we saw a slight decrease in volumes, which was offset by higher prices of both cement and concrete, as well as improved sales mix favoring higher margin cement and building solutions. This all led us to an increase in revenues of 10.4%. This improvement was also reflected in quarterly EBITDA, which reached an outstanding $141.5 million, the highest in company history. In terms of annual results, revenues increased almost 50% compared to 2020. Although bagged cement continues to represent most of our sales, it is important to mention that in 2021, concrete, pavement, and mortar sales increased almost 70% when compared to the same period last year. This is truly remarkable and aligns with our strategy to become a building solutions provider. We are extremely pleased with these results, but we are also aware that it is going to be a very difficult task to surpass these record levels So I'll go for 2022, which is still an extremely challenging one, is to maintain current sales volume levels. You have to keep in mind that we went from selling 2.6 million tons in 2019 or 20 to 3.6 million tons in 2021, which means an increase of almost 40%. I would like to take this opportunity to review the year as a whole and to focus on our strategic view for the future. As mentioned before, this year, we reached unprecedented sales levels of sales and EBITDA. This is undeniably exceptional and beyond any estimates we could have rationally calculated at the beginning. As we have mentioned before, the market conditions have boosted sales throughout the country, but as it is evidenced by our increased national market share, we have also managed to grow above the national average. Part of this is derived from public spending for the reconstruction of the North, but we believe it is fair to say that our strategy has also generated additional demand. By maintaining and reinforcing our client-centric vision, we have been able to develop a variety of products and services that respond to their unique needs. For the industrial segment, another Pacasmayo professional brand, we continue digitalizing the purchasing process and the uses of our products and services. We have digitalized almost entirely our transactional relationship with our clients. For our self-builders, on the other hand, we have Mundo Experto, an ecosystem that integrates physical and digital solutions, improves the purchasing experience, and contributes to the professionalization and formalization of the construction market. Although we have been working with sustainability at our core for many, many years now, we believe that COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated its relevance and the pressing need to show significant improvements in this path. We have always, and I mean always, strived to reach the highest standards, always looking to compare ourselves with the global leaders, despite our size and more localized nature. Evidence of this is the fact that we have been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for three consecutive years, improving our ranking every year to reach the eighth place in our industry during the past year. We have also been included in the sustainability yearbook for two consecutive years. Our first year, we were awarded the industry mover status as we recorded the strongest year on year score improvement in our industry. This makes us extremely proud. This year, we remain in the index as one of the only eight cement companies included. We are very pleased to see that more Peruvian companies are joining the index and yearbook, and hope the number will continue increasing. At the national level, we were recently named the top cement company in ESG by Merco, and reached 15th place in the overall ranking, improving 24 spots since last year. The strongest improvement of any top 100 companies. We are very proud of this achievement and are pleased to see that our efforts carried out throughout many, many years are recognized and rewarded. We will continue to strive for improvement as we know that there are always things we can do better, and we are constantly challenging ourselves to reach those highest scores. I will now turn the call over to Manuel for a more detailed analysis of the financial results. Manuel.