Cementos Pacasmayo S.A.A.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Pacas Mayo's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. 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 your host for today's call, Mrs. Claudia Bustamante, Sustainability and Investor Relations Manager. Mrs. Bustamante, you may begin.

Thank you, Tim. 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 these risks are set forth in the company's regulatory filing. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Humberto Nari.

Thank you, Claudia. Welcome everyone to our quarterly results conference call, and thank you so much for joining us today. This quarter, revenues increased 3.4% year-over-year, showing a reversal of a negative trend that started almost two years ago. The increase in revenues were mainly driven by concrete and pavement sales related to the Pura Airport project, which almost doubled in this quarter as compared to the second quarter of 2023. Furthermore, we were able to achieve a 6% increase in consolidated bid time, mainly due to operational efficiencies derived from our new clinic, Bacasmayo, as well as favorable raw material prices. We are confident that the efficiencies achieved will be sustainable over time, and top-line growth should sustain by the continued delivery of concrete and pavement for the airport project and increased participation on public investment projects. These factors certainly make for a more promising second half of the year. Despite this increasing infrastructure-related demand, the housing sector in Peru is still by far the biggest driver of demand. According to a study conducted by GRADI, a private research center in Peru, there is a requirement of 142,000 new homes every single year. Social housing programs only cover 30% of this requirement, leaving the remaining 70% up to self-construction. On average, we have to mention that self-construction process takes an appalling 16 years from the acquisition or occupation of the property to the completion of the home. During this time, families spend about eight years in a completely precarious home and an additional eight years in a home under construction. Dead floors are known to harbor parasites and bacteria that can cause serious illnesses, including respiratory illnesses and anemia, among many others. To tackle this extremely harsh reality, we are working on a variety of different fronts. To decrease anemia and illnesses as part of our corporate social responsibility efforts, we are changing dirt floors and replacing them by concrete starting in our areas of influence. By the end of July, 255 floors will be completed, and our target is to build 1,000 from the north by the end of this year. Additionally, if we want to go one step beyond and ensure improvement in overall health, This program will also provide health counseling to help our beneficiary families understand how to make and sustain those healthy lifestyle changes. As you probably already know, the self-construction segment represents over 70% of our sales. As mentioned before, the self-construction process takes on average 16 years. It is unacceptable for a family to have to wait this long for a proper home. These families are our consumers, and we know that when they buy a bag of cement, what they really want is their dream home. Therefore, we are committed and working on solutions aimed at easing this unnecessary long journey. We are developing a temporary housing service that will help low-income families to live in better quality temporary homes. This temporary solution can be transferred without additional expenses to their permanent home, avoiding precarious situations and enabling its transformation for future use. On the financing side, a tremendous challenge at this point, we have IU, a solution designed as an intelligent purchasing method so that people are able to define their project and buy the materials that they need month by month until they have all of the materials needed to carry out their chosen project. All of these programs are absolutely aligned with our purpose of building together the future you dream of. I would like to mention that we are very pleased with the performance of our building solutions this quarter. Concrete, mortar, and pavement sales increased 91% this quarter when compared to the same period last year. Concrete and pavement sales were mainly related to the Pura Airport, as I mentioned before. This quarter, we finished phase one of the project, which included the construction of a temporary runway. Phase two of the project will tackle the reconstruction of the main runway. One week was begun at the end of this quarter and should be completed by December of this year. Pre-cast sales this quarter also increased 46% year-over-year, positively affected by the acceleration of public sector projects. We expect this trend to continue as public works continues execution and new projects start coming in line in the upcoming months. I will now call over to Manuel to go into more detail. Manuel?