Sigma Foods SAB

second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session with instructions given at that time. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Hernan Lozano, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Lozano, you may begin.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Alpha's second quarter earnings webinar. We hope this Zoom broadcast will be more convenient than our previous dial-in and webcast alternatives. As always, we very much appreciate your feedback. Further details about our financial results can be found in our press release, which was distributed yesterday afternoon together with a summarized presentation. Both are available on our website in the investor relations section. Let me remind you that during this call, we will share forward-looking information and statements, which are based on variables and assumptions that are uncertain at this time. It is my pleasure to participate in today's webinar together with Eduardo Escalante, Alpha's CFO, Roberto Olivares, Sigma's CFO, and representatives from each Alpha company. Before moving on to our discussion and results, Let me make a brief comment about the accounting treatment of Excel. In accordance with IFRS, Alpha began accounting for this subsidiary as a discontinued operation in the second quarter of 2022. This treatment was applicable through May 29, 2023, which is the day that Controladora Excel shares were distributed and started trading on the Mexican Bolsa. Detailed information related to this can be found in our earnings release. Unless otherwise specified, all consolidated figures referenced in this call exclude Axtello. I will now turn the webinar over to Eduardo.

Thank you Hernan and good afternoon everyone. We greatly appreciate your participation today. An important step forward for Alpha during the second quarter was the successful spin-off of Controlador Axtel, further simplifying our corporate structure. Shareholders now have the option to hold individual stakes in NIMAC, Axtel, and Alpha. Our portfolio has been streamlined down to Alpec and Sigma, two large geographically diverse companies with leadership positions in their respective industries. In addition, these two businesses have gradually gained autonomy from alpha-related services as we continue trimming our corporate expenses. We have come a long way in our transformational process and are fully committed to continue moving forward in a prudent and efficient manner. Three factors are key to completing our journey while ensuring financial flexibility at Alpha, Alpec, and Sigma. First, higher EBITDA generation from Sigma. It is exciting to see the company's record 2Q23 performance and optimistic outlook which reflects a significant improvement when compared with the challenges Sigma faced last year. Second, debt reduction at the alpha level. The valuable assets we hold, plus the organic cash flow that our businesses generate, support various potential leverage avenues ahead. Importantly, bank loans at alpha totaling $700 million provide flexibility in the timing and amounts of future payments. Third, the discipline in our methodical and diligent approach. This is especially important as we are keen on defining the path forward of this orderly process, I mean a fluid macroenvironment. Moving next to a discussion of Alpha's second quarter results. Our consolidated revenues were down 10% and EBITDA declined 46% year over year. However, our two subsidiaries posted substantial differences in their standalone performance. Alpec is facing both expected and unexpected headwinds, while Sigma is exceeding original estimations by a wide margin. I will now turn the call over to Roberto Olivares, Sigma's CFO, to let him discuss the company's strong second quarter results and progress on strategic initiatives. Please, Roberto.

Thank you, Eduardo, and good afternoon, everyone. On the business front, I would like to start with an overview of financial and operational results, provide additional information on the revised guidance, and discuss recent developments. Record consolidated revenues were 2.1 billion, 15% higher than second Q22, signaling our ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Revenues reflected an increase across all regions when compared to the same period last year and were mainly driven by strong volume in Mexico, higher average prices in Europe, and the appreciation of the Mexican peso and the euro against the U.S. dollar. The record high quarterly EBITDA of $217 million was up 26% versus second Q22. and mainly boosted by strong performance in the Americas. As results for the quarter, benefited from raw material cost improvements in the U.S., favorable results on Mexico food service channel, and a strong Mexican peso. Amid the enduring inflationary pressures that continue to impact European operations, and in addition to pricing adjustments, we have also executed several important cost-saving actions. During the quarter, we implemented a comprehensive restructuring plan leading to a 5% reduction in administrative payroll throughout the region. This initiative paves the way for cost savings, raises accountability, and fosters improved organizational alignment. We anticipate that the savings generated from this endeavor will offset second Q23 non-recruiting restructuring expenses of $12 million during 2024. Encouraged by the robust performance during the first half of 2023 and a promising outlook for the rest of the year, we are excited to announce that we raise our 2023 guidance, revise Revenues are now $8.6 billion, reflecting a 6% increase when compared to our original guidance. Updated EBITDA stands at $880 million, marking a 25% increase versus the prior amount, and will signify a milestone for Sigma, significantly surpassing the $800 million mark. These adjusted figures consider the favorable outcomes in the Americas and better results for our European operations in the second half of the year. In addition, we revised our CAPEX guidance downwards to $240 million from the initial $280 million in order to reflect only essential investments. This figure does not include the recent acquisitions. Moving on to strategic topics. During the quarter, we acquired a majority stake in Los Altos Foods, a renowned U.S. regional dairy brand. This integration bolsters our position within the attractive and growing Hispanic cheese market and complements the value proposition of our Hispanic brands portfolio. In addition, the Iowa plant purchase was completed in June. which will reinforce our lunch meat production through phase capacity increments. Both the strategic location of Los Altos production facility on the west coast, plus the new package meats plan in Iowa, will create an incremental capacity that significantly improves our U.S. footprint, enabling us to better serve our consumers in the region. On the sustainability front, we are proud to announce that the Science-Based Targets Initiative, or SBTIs, validated our near-term company-wide targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2, and 3. The SBTIs aligns with the most up-to-date climate science and adheres to the guidelines set forth by the Paris Agreement. This endorsement strengthens our confidence in our ongoing progress towards environmental stewardship and deepens our commitments to incorporate ESD criteria into our daily decision-making processes. The record achievements and the significant progress of our first semester provide us a solid foundation as we look towards the future. We approach the second half of the year with an optimistic view. constantly striving to generate enduring value for our stakeholders. Thank you for your attention. I will now turn the call back to Eduardo for additional comments and closing remarks. Eduardo.

Thank you, Roberto. Let's move on to ALPEC's second quarter results and updated outlook for the remainder of the year. Our petrochemical business posted year-over-year declines of 71% and 46% in EBITDA and comparable EBITDA respectively versus peak levels in 2Q22. Results reflect the anticipated normalization of ocean freight rates and a higher influence from weak Chinese reference marines. In addition, Alpec is facing a challenging feedstock environment marked by higher paraxylene prices in North America versus Asia, which also weighs on polyester volume and margins. Among other remedial actions, the company is increasing its paraxylene imports from Asia to mitigate the current feedstock price disconnection. However, The recent industry headwinds have prompted Alpek to revisit its full year guidance. Comparable EBITDA was adjusted down to $770 million, mainly reflecting lower volume and margins in the polyester segment. Furthermore, Alpek estimates an annual impact of $110 million from extraordinary items such as non-cash inventory adjustments and carry forward effect. In turn, ALPHA updated its 2023 consolidated guidance to reflect the adjustments at ALPEC and SIGMA. Revenues were lowered to $16.4 billion. EBITDA decreased to $1.5 billion. Comparable EBITDA increases slightly to $1.65 billion. and CapEx decreased to $547 million from our previous revision. We are encouraged by Sigma's positive outlook and confidence in Altec's ability to navigate through the temporary market distortions supported by its strong position. At Alpha, the focus is on completing our advanced transformation. This concludes my remarks. We are now available to take your questions. Please, Hernan. Sure.

We would like to begin the Q&A session with questions on alpha. Eduardo and I will take questions on alpha for corporate matters. As a reminder, Sigma, Alpec, and Axtell will be available to answer individual questions later in the Q&A session. Operator, please instruct participants to queue for questions on Alpha.

Dear participant, if you'd like to ask a question about Alpha, please use the raise your hand button of your Zoom tool.

Our first question comes from Rodolfo Ramos from Bradesco. Please go ahead.

Hello, good afternoon, Eduardo, Hernan, thanks for taking my question. I have a question on a follow-up on Eduardo's initial remarks. You mentioned these three key factors in your unlocking value initiative, and I just wanted to get a little bit of more color on your first factor you mentioned, that higher EBITDA generation of Sigma. It's clear that things are moving in the right direction with the revised guidance, very strong Mexico operation. Perhaps Europe, you still have some improvement there. But how does this better performance of Sigma work? you know, make you think about the timeline on the final step, let's say, let's call it that, on this, you know, unlocking value initiative, which would bring Alpec to the, you know, follow the same path as Axtel and NEMAC. And coupled with that, I think this is something that I've also might have mentioned in the previous call, but, you know, we've seen Alpex performance also, you know, weak share price. So as well, how does that factor in this timeline? Just to get a sense of when we might start, you know, getting more details and for us to follow this story better. Thank you, Eduardo and Hernan.

Thank you, thank you, Rodolfo, for bringing those questions. Let me begin by confirming and I would say reaffirming that we maintain a firm commitment to continue with the transformation process that we have engaged in ALPHA. However, we think it's important that each step that we take forward is taken carefully to ensure that we maintain a strong financial position, both at alpha as well as at the subsidiary levels. Certainly, as you mentioned, a strong, Evita generation by Sigma helps significantly to move along the process. We are very excited to see a faster than expected growth in the Sigma Civita. Just as a reference, Sigma's guidance in terms of EBITDA is 25%, as Roberto mentioned, above the previous level. So that certainly helps, and we hope to be able to maintain the solid growth in Sigma beyond 2023. Having a higher EBITDA, as you mentioned, will help the process as Sigma will be able to keep a larger portion of alphas dead in their balance, maintaining a strong position. So that certainly helps and And hopefully going forward, we will continue to do so. Regarding Alpec, Alpec share price, we have discussed in the past, and I think it's important to remind the market that the lower the market price is in the case of Alpec, the lower the profit would be when we do the spin-off of Alpec. As you may recall, the spin-offs in Mexico according to the fiscal law are considered a sale for fiscal purposes. So the lower the price, the lower the profit would be. and therefore the impact would be lower. We follow a very conservative fiscal approach in Alphas. We have done in the past transactions, both in the case of NIMAC and Axtell, and we'll continue doing so in Alpec, but certainly a lower stock price helps the process going forward.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Our next question comes from Nick Lipman of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, gentlemen. Thank you very much for taking my question. Congrats on the strong numbers in Cigna. I'm just looking for that clear roadmap towards the the end story transformation here. Eduardo, can you comment on three times net EBDA target? And, you know, right now with LPIC, being closer to book value. Is that something you could revise? I mean, could it be 3.5? Could you think about the value of the headquarter as almost cash in that calculation? So that's question number one. Question number two, how should we think about dividends from Alpha in this whole process? Over the last year, we've paid out very aggressive dividends. over the last couple of years. You haven't paid dividends, I think, so far this year. And obviously, LPEC is paying less, will be paying less going forward. So how should we think about that in terms of the whole restructuring and in terms of sort of your dividend policy? Thank you very much.

Sure, Nicolai. Thanks for the questions. Regarding the targets, Today we have alpha at 3.3. We expect alpha to continue being below 3.5 times going forward. Certainly for the rest of 2023, considering the lower EBITDA from Alpec and higher from Sigma, we will have pressure. We will have some pressure by the decrease in our leverage level. But we think we will continue being below three and a half times. Regarding Sigma, Sigma today at 2.8 and Alpec being at 2.3, Even though we expect Alpec to increase a little bit in their leverage and Sigma to decrease when they continue capturing the opportunities that they mentioned in their guidance, we expect both to trend towards two and a half times. Going forward, we feel confident that Sigma can maintain the potential the leverage below two and a half times in order to have room to take over some of the debt from Alpha when the spin-off of Alpec is done. We think we do have some room, as you mentioned, to be above two and a half times. We don't like it. We think two and a half times is a reasonable level and we will certainly aim to continue being at or below two and a half times. The growth expected for Sigma going forward the next few years should provide enough room to be able to be at that level, below two and a half times. Regarding dividends, your second question, Dividends, certainly considering the situation that ALPEC is facing with the headwinds, a more cautious approach will be followed. ALPEC announced today during their conference call that they do not expect to pay any additional dividends for the remainder of the year. In the case of Sigma, Sigma already paid $75 million in the first half of the year. The second payment of Sigma is still being evaluated. Honestly, we don't know how much Sigma will, if any, pay any additional dividends to the holding company, to Alpha. And depending on that, is what we will do in alpha. At this point in time, what we can say is that alpha additional payments of dividends for 2023 are not confirmed. The board is looking at the capital allocation at the alpha level in an ongoing basis. And certainly an alternative that I think is a strong alternative is to take advantage of additional dividends from Sigma, if any, to continue with the debt reduction at the holding company. So I think it's early to put a stake on the ground regarding dividends in Alpha going forward, but certainly the The position today is with ALPEC situation is, I would say, weaker in terms of cash flow for alpha from ALPEC in terms of dividends. So we are, as I mentioned, revising the dividends going forward. Thank you. You're welcome.

There are no further questions at this time.

Thank you. So in that case, we will then take questions on Sigma. Roberto Olivares, Sigma CFO, will answer your questions. Operator, please prompt for questions on Sigma.

Dear participant, if you'd like to ask a question about Sigma, please use the raise your hand button of your Zoom tool.

Our first question comes from Rodolfo Ramos from Bradesco. Please go ahead.

Thank you. My question is just on your different regions. How sustainable do you think the current level of EBITDA margins are in Mexico and the US? And then if you can talk a little bit about the actions that you're taking in Europe and when do you expect to recuperate what you've seen in terms of margin historically?

Thank you. Thank you, Rodolfo. Thank you for your question. So let me start by Mexico and the U.S. There were certainly several tailwinds benefiting the results, particularly in Mexico, mainly because of the effects and also resilient demand. We have a careful approach that prioritizes volume. having in mind a long-term perspective. So if external conditions, let me say that the Mexican peso depreciates in the further months, we do expect to cover that gap with additional EBITDA coming from Europe. And let me move to Europe. In terms of Europe, if you see this quarter, we have one big impact because of an administrative organizational restructure of 12 million dollars. And if you deduct that or do a perform of that impact, the result will have been fairly different. Also, during the second half of the year, we do expect to have additional volume because of seasonality. Usually, during particularly the last quarter of the year, we have higher volumes in Europe. And also, we do expect to have better margins. One, because of pricing, particularly in France, most of the pricing in France is indexed to the cost of raw materials. And we do expect that prices to raise during the third quarter. And also mainly in the last quarter of the year, we do expect raw material prices in Europe to decrease, particularly because we have a higher production of pork. So if you see this going forward, depending obviously on what happened to the FX, but even if the FX depreciate, the Mexican peso depreciate a little bit, we do expect to continue having kind of the same of profitability because we do expect Europe to recover in the second half of the year.

Thank you, Roberto. And if I may have a follow-up on your comment about resilient demand, can you talk a little bit of how do you see the consumer in Mexico, I mean, clearly the FX is helping a lot, but just looking at the demand side, um, you know, we have started to see some companies, um, seeing some down trading, you know, maybe in specific categories. Um, but if you, you know, uh, if, if you can talk, if you can talk to the, you know, how, how do you see, uh, the Mexican consumer going forward? That'd be very useful.

Sure. So I would say in general, we have seen in first inflation going or lowering a little bit in the last months. Also, we say employment getting a little bit better. If you see numbers of consumer confidence, the ones that are public, you also see that consumer confidence is improving in the country. We have good thermometer in terms of also economy with our food service business. We can see that out of home consumption, has been increasing, our volume in our food service, particularly in Mexico, has been increasing significantly. And also tourism, so we see the hotel occupancy rate that we have in the main tourist destinations, and we also see that rating increasing. When you see how our volume is increasing in the different channels, Rodolfo, particularly the moderate trade and also convenience. The convenience channel are the ones that are increasing the most. So people are more in the street. There is a little bit more dynamism, at least in our category, in terms of volume. In terms of, you mentioned trade-down, I would say in terms of trade-down, particularly in Mexico, since we have been increasing volume, we do see higher volume increases in those segments that are more value or that, so not the premium segments. So lower segment brands are increasing at a higher rate than those of the premiums. But I think it's fairly in line with what with inflation, but we are constantly, again, taking care of our consumer, looking into how we can better serve them. We have been doing a lot of internal work in terms of cost and expense saving initiatives in order to not necessarily or do not increase prices, on the contrary, to be able to offer some discounts and continue having so good margins.

Ricardo, Roberto, thank you.

Our next question comes from Alejandro Lavin of Santander. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for the call and for taking our questions. So I have a photo up on the prior question regarding margins. So you mentioned, right, that you're on the right path to continue recovering margins this year, probably also next year. So what would be like a sustainable ballpark margin target for the next couple of years? Let's call it 24, 25, medium term, roughly, to have that in mind. Thank you.

Thank you, Alejandro. So I will say that if you see the margins by region, right now we have a Mexico business with significantly good margin for the quarter around 16%. I will say that in the mid-teens is something that particularly in Mexico, we think we were able to sustain The big difference will be the one in Europe. So right now, obviously, because of that one time effect, the Europe margin is negative. But if we go back to our plan in Europe and being able to increase the margin in the coming months, I will say the consolidated margin of the company should be more in line to meetings number than the one that we have right now. And for the case of Europe, I will say first, we need to get back to our pre-conflict EBITDA margin levels. And as I mentioned, we have been taking decisive actions in terms of pricing and also in terms of cost savings. And this restructure that we did during the quarter is a sample of what we want to do. And in addition to that, we do expect to continue having innovation to gain some more volume in the different regions. After we recover that pre-conflict EBITDA margin, we want to continue with our medium to long-term strategy, the one that we have discussed previously based on our footprint optimization, based on our high potential opportunities, particularly in snacking and plant-based in Europe, and also on our European heritage product that we want to be able to sell in other countries outside of Europe with high margins.

So in terms of timing, like when would be a year that you could achieve this? Is that maybe 25? And has this timeline changed given the current environment versus the start of this year?

Sure. So I would say in terms of our medium to long-term strategy, we're advancing in a good pace, but more to recover the pre-conflict margins in the short term, it will depend, let me say, a lot on how the inflation evolves given the Russia-Ukraine conflict now. There's still a lot of volatility and uncertainty. Recently, you know that in the past couple of weeks, the Black Sea Grain Initiative stopped and there was some volatility on prices of grain and therefore prices on protein. So I would say more on the short term will depend a lot on that. But in the long term, we're working diligently to be able to, whenever the situation in Russia and Ukraine ceases, we're able to recover back our path to that number.

Okay, understood.

Thank you. Thank you, Alejandro.

Our next question comes from Nick Lippan of Morgan Stanley. Please, go ahead.

Thank you, and Roberto, congrats on your numbers. Can you talk to two questions on my side here? Can you talk a little bit about any potential strategic initiatives you're considering looking at in Europe from asset sales closures or even an IPO in Spain where I would imagine you're still profitable? And so that's question number one. And question number two, Can you talk about, maybe just a reminder, and I'm sorry if I missed it in the quarterly note, but what's the status of your relationship with your play? When is it up for renegotiation and how are you doing with those negotiations? Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Nicolas. So let me talk about the strategic initiatives in Europe. So as I mentioned, we have been working on, particularly on the optimization of our footprint. Two years ago, we announced the sale of two plants in France. We were also consolidating some distribution centers that we have in Spain. We used to have two plants. we're consolidating that to one in Spain in order to optimize more footprint. We are changing some lines, improving or getting more capacity, particularly for a co-extrusion line in Portugal that is going to be able to give us capacity, but also a lower fixed cost. So we have been working in all plants, in all what we call systems, particularly dry hams, dry sausage and cooked ham and cooked sausage, being able to optimize our footprint as much as possible. We also see some opportunities, again, in terms of white spaces or adjacent categories. For example, we have been introducing snacking and plant-based in Europe very successfully recently. In the case of Spain, our plant-based hot dog is now the number one plant-based hot dog of Spain in just maybe half a year being on top of the brands that has been there for many years. And we are still evaluating more opportunities on that front. In the case of JobPlay, we have a long-term relationship with them. We have been working since 1994 and renewing that contract since then. We operate the brand as if it's our own brand. We do not expect any disruptions on that sense. We have a very good... let me say operations in terms of how we operate the plant. The plant is one of the best practice plants of the YoPlay system. And also in terms of innovation, we have been doing very well. I can say that most of the, not most, but a good number of the volume growth that we have in this quarter versus last quarter of of last year, of the same quarter of last year, it has to do with yogurt. So we have been doing very well in terms of volume on our yogurt plate brand in Mexico.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Alejandro Azar of GBM. Please go ahead.

Hi, Roberto. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. It's very simple. From your Mexican operations, 163 million in Evita, could you give us a color on the FX benefit that you have on the cost side? Sure.

Thank you, Alejandro. So we have approximately around $8 to $10 million of benefit in effects per month versus last year, versus the numbers, the average effects from last year.

So that's a 30 million impact for the quarter, right? That is correct. Thank you, Robert.

Our next question comes from Eduardo Mota from BlackRock. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, Eduardo.

I can hear you. Thank you for the space for question, Roberto. I'm just wondering if the restructuring process in Europe is over or should we expect additional charges in the coming months? Thank you.

Thank you, Eduardo. Right now, we do not expect additional charges on this in the next quarter.

Okay. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time.

Thank you. Let me just go back real quick to a question that we got from the Q&A function in the Zoom broadcast. And it relates to alpha's leverage, additional and alpha's leverage at the close of 2023 given our new consolidated guidance? Please. Sure. Sure, Hernan.

We see no impact in operating free cash flow versus the previous guidance at the end of this year. With the new guidance, at the consolidated level, the EBITDA has a reduction of roughly $85 million, which will be almost fully compensated by less capex we have $75 million less capex as we postpone non-essential investments. In addition to that, we also expect to have by the end of the year improvements in networking capital as the companies take advantage of lower raw material and feedstocks costs. And also in dividends, as we have discussed, as we follow a more cautious approach. We think all these factors will combine to mitigate the upward pressure that we will have the rest of the year caused by the decreasing inevitable. All in all, we expect a sigma to decrease from 2.8 times today and approach during the rest of the year the 2.5 times target, as I mentioned before. In the case of Altec, we expect Altec to be able to mitigate the upward pressure from the 2.3 times that they are today and remain close to two and a half times. And finally, on a consolidated level in alpha, we expect the leverage to continue being below three and a half times, considering our expectations for the rest of the year reflected in the current guidance.

Okay, that was the only question we got from the Q&A, and in that case, I would like to move forward and take questions on Alpec and Axtell. We have Jose Carlos Pons, Alpec's CFO, and Adrian de los Santos, Axtell's CFO. So, operator, could you please prompt for questions on Alpec or Axtell?

participant. If you'd like to ask a question about ALPC and Axtel, please use the raise your hand button of your Zoom tool.

So it seems that there's no additional questions. I think we're getting one question from Alejandro Labin.

Our first question comes from Alejandro Labin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Thanks again. So I guess, could you provide more color on this guidance? Maybe the guidance cut? I mean, the magnitude of the cut is quite relevant. So I'm wondering if you could provide more color on how these trends have evolved throughout the year and why this big of a surprise so early, quote unquote, in the year, just halfway through the year. Thank you.

Thank you, Alejandro. And just to be sure, you're talking about Albeck, right? This question is for Jose Carlos.

Yes, correct. Alpex EBITDA Guidance Code. Yes. Great. Thank you.

Well, thank you for your question. Well, as we indicated in our conference call before this conference call, basically what we're thinking or seeing, it's a softer second half of the year than what we originally expected. So the reason mainly for adjustment is Inevitable guidance comes from our view of the second half of the year. As you will see, we're having a more cautious approach towards the margins that we'll face in this latter part of the year. And additionally, we're seeing softer volumes throughout the segments in which we participate. We're still optimistic on going forward. We see resilience in the markets in which we participate in. But at this moment, we don't feel that it's prudent to remain with the good guidance that we had beforehand. So I'll summarize it in lower margins and a little bit lower volumes.

I'm thinking of 2024. Could this... Could we see an improvement perhaps on EBITDA?

Well, certainly we're working on several initiatives, initiatives on footprint to optimize our costs. We're also doing restructuring in terms of energy contracts, and we're also looking ways to improve our G&A. So that should contribute to improve just our cost position. Margins, of course, it's difficult to forecast, but I think we're at the bottom of the cycle. And well, there could be some upside going forward in 2024.

Okay, thank you.

Our next question comes from Agustin Bonasora. Please go ahead.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, Agustin.

I have a follow-up question for Jose Carlos. You mentioned lower volumes in the second half, but I understand that your business is very close to the consumption business. So at the end, you are guiding improvements in terms of volume for Sigma and just trying to understand where these lower volumes come from in in the case of Antec. And the second question is, I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but you are expecting that leverage to remain at 2.5 times at Antec level. If that's so, if you can clarify me how it's gonna be that number with lower EBTA, thank you. Certainly, thank you.

I'll get first your question regarding volumes. Well, we've been cautious on just producing tons out of producing tons. So we rationalized some exports that we were doing out of Mexico and some other facilities that we have in the US into other markets. And that's mainly the reason that we're seeing lower volumes, because we've been cautious enough to maintain profitability. It's not in the area of there's lower demand in the US market. We believe that the portfolio that we have today is very resilient and we continue to be in a very strong position. So it's really just rationalizing lower profitable volumes. In the terms of leverage, yes, our target remains 2.5 times what we have been doing. Well, as we indicated in our conference call, we've been focusing strongly in working capital. We were able to capture plus of $200 million of working capital only in this quarter, and we believe there's to further capture or improve our working capital. In addition, we've been focusing on making more efficient investments. At this moment, we have not taken the decision to take any of the projects that we have out of the scope. We're just trying to challenge our people and find ways to be more efficient in how we invest. And I guess that's it. And of course, the dividend, which we confirmed that will not be paid in this year, also supports our commitment towards a 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA.

Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Augustin.

There being no further questions, I would like to return the call to management.

Well, in that case, we'd like to thank you very much for your interest in Alpha. If you have additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us. We would be pleased to assist you. Thank you very much for joining us today and have a great day. We will now disconnect.

This concludes today's conference call.