Grupo Herdez, S.A.B. de C.V.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leonor and I will be your conference operator. Welcome to Grupo ERDE's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please ensure that your full name is displayed correctly on Zoom. If not, please take a moment to edit your display name. Please note that this call is being recorded. Information discussed may include forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the forward-looking statements disclaimer in our press release. I'll now turn the call over to Gerardo Canavati, Chief Financial and Information Officer.

Thank you, Leonor. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today to discuss Grupo ERDE's second quarter and first half 2025 results. In a tougher consumer environment, coupled with difficult comps, we managed to grow market share in two thirds of our portfolio. Traditionally, the start of a new federal government in Mexico is slow. together with geopolitical uncertainties, keeps investments in the sidelines and the general business and consumption environment weak. Particularly during the second quarter, we saw major clients reduce inventory significantly, and despite being a one-off, sales performance was weaker than expected, having a significant impact on our working capital. We do not put much attention on quarterly results based on external short-term adjustments, difficult comps, and seasonality. Lately, our quarterly results have been volatile. We rather focus on the long-term trend that looks stable. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Andrea for a detailed review of our financial and operational performance. Andrea.

Thank you, Gerardo. In the second quarter of 2025, Grupo Verde's net sales increased 4.4% year over year, reaching 9.7 billion pesos. For the first half of the year, sales grew almost 7% to 19.4 billion. The preserve segment was a key growth driver, increasing 4.7% in the quarter and 7.5% for the first six months of the year, reaching 7.4 billion and 15.1 billion pesos respectively. This momentum reflects the success of our promotional strategies, which deliver strong results in the mayonnaise and spices categories and allowed us to gain market share in vegetables. The export segment grew 12% for the quarter and almost 10% year to date, volume being the main driver. These results reflect continued expansion efforts, including the transition to a new distribution partner in Canada the launch of Guerrilla in El Salvador, and the growing demand for Herde Salsas in Europe and Latin America. On the other hand, the impulse segment faced challenges, with sales declining 0.6% in the quarter, primarily due to heavy rainfall in June that affected Helados Nestlé performance. This was partially offset by an increase in average tickets, driven by effective commercial strategies that sustain value without relying on price increases for the retail segment. Year-to-date, impulse sales grew 1.7%, reaching 2.8 billion pesos. Moving to profitability, consolidated gross margin for the quarter was 39.6%, a contraction of 0.8 percentage points mainly due to higher raw material costs in preserves and impulse, particularly for egg yolk, coffee, and certain packaging inputs. Year-to-date, the gross margin improved 0.3 percentage points to 40.2%. The export segment gross margin was 17.9, an increase of almost 7 percentage points driven by cost efficiencies in Chonky Salsa, mainly. Consolidated SG&A as a percentage of net sales reached 27% in the quarter and 26.6% for the first six months, higher than last year's mainly explained by increased promotions aimed at stimulating demand, especially in the impulse segment. In this segment, expenses alone increased by 77 million pesos year-to-date, mainly coming from Elados Nestlé. Consolidated operating income for the quarter totaled 1.3 billion pesos, down 1.1%, with an operating margin of 13.1%. Consolidated EBBA for the quarter reached 1.6 billion pesos, with a margin of 16.2%. The slight decline is largely attributed to the impulse segment, which posted an operating loss of 34 million. Despite these short-term pressures, our year-to-date performance remains solid. Operating profits grew 7.8% to 2.8 billion, with margins stable at 14.1. EBITDA rose almost 6% to 3.3 billion pesos with a stable margin too. Turning to our equity investments, contribution from associated companies delivered strong results, reaching 149 million this quarter, a 47.4 year-over-year increase. Cumulatively, this contribution grew to $356 million, almost 60% up from last year's challenging performance. These results were driven by Megamex, which posted sales of $4.6 million, up 21% quarter-over-quarter and 7% in dollar terms. Within Megamix, Holy Guacamole saw a 10% volume recovery, driven by seasonal demand during football season in the first quarter and the Cinco de Mayo festivities in the second quarter. Furthermore, in December, Don Miguel successfully expanded its mini taco distribution to Sam's Club in Canada, contributing to a 4.9% increased year-to-date volume. which climbed to $8.8 billion compared to 2024, strengthening performance in convenience stores and price clubs. The gross margin at Megamex for the quarter was 26.4%, down 70 basis points compared to last year, reflecting continued pressure from avocado prices, which rose 4.6% in the first half of the year compared to last year. Encouragingly, we began to see a downward trend in avocado prices in June, which we expect will continue in the coming months. Finally, returning to the consolidated net income, it increased 23.6% to $269 million in the quarter and 46.1% year-to-date to reach $681 billion. This improvement was driven by our reduction in our comprehensive financing costs, as well as the increased contributions from Megamex particularly. Our financial position remains solid. Cash on hand totaled 2.6 billion pesos in June, down 31% compared to the previous quarter, mainly due to the strategic buildup of inventories explained in the press release and the extraordinary dividend paid in May. Our net debt to EVDA ratio stood at 1.2 times. I will now turn the call over to Gerardo for additional remarks.

Thank you, Andrea. Despite the current environment, we expect a more upbeat second half of the year. guidance, we still see sales growing in line. In preserves, we see sales growing in high single digits. We're lowering impulse due to our second quarter. We're going to grow in the low double digit range. Exports will be down due to softness in two of our major categories and the exchange rate effect, while EBIT will grow in the low single, in the high single digit. Regarding impulse, retail particularly, We are expecting to increase our EBIT margin as we reign in SG&A. We ramp up our stores and we're focusing more on same-store sales due to improved offerings. In terms of EBITDA, we're expecting preserves to grow in the single-digit range. Impulse will increase north of 40%. and exportable increase in the mid single digit. We are expecting income from Megamix to grow in the low 40s. And lastly, net consolidated income will grow in the mid double digits and majority net income north of 30%. Regarding CapEx, We're going to be in our guided range, in the middle of the range, about 1,600 million pesos. Talking about other topics of the company, in this quarter, we successfully implemented ERP in one of our smallest subsidiaries, where we have three quarters of our operating processes. We are preparing a full rollout for the first quarter of 2026. Also, we are still expecting to concluding the separation of Grupo Nutriza before the end of this quarter. After that, we can now turn the call back over to your questions.

Thank you. We will now conduct the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press the raise hand button located at the bottom of the screen. If you are connected via telephone, please dial star nine. We remind you that all lines have been placed on mute. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will be given permission to speak and you will then be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.

We will pause for questions.

Our first question comes from the line of Maria de la Madrid. Please state your company name and ask your question.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I'm from GVM. I have three questions. The first one is, given volumes rose this quarter, how are you thinking about the balance between pricing and volume for the second half

is going to be a half and half. So volume, we are expecting for the second half that will be in the low single digits and the rest will come from price.

Perfect, can I go on with my second question?

Sure Maria.

With recent tariffs and trade tensions, how will you manage avocado price volatility in the second half?

Well, that's a really important question. As long as we are, all our products that we export to the U.S. are in the current trade agreement. As long as our products are there, we are not subject to tariffs. But obviously, that can change going forward. And if By any reason that changes, we are prepared to increasing prices, passing some of these effects, and the other one, absorbing in the short term some of those pressures. So far, we haven't been in the need of moving our pricing strategy.

Thank you. And my last question is, free cash flow turned negative this quarter. Was the inventory bill mainly precautionary or tied to promotional strategies? And should we expect a reversal and normalization in the third quarter?

Well, I think it's a combination of a few things. It's a combination of the lower sales that we were not agile enough to adjust our inventory, but we are expecting to end the year, not the third quarter, the whole year with better working capital. Probably the need of working capital would be in the 200 or 300 million pesos from a year.

Thank you so much.

That Fourth quarter is our best quarter. So there's a seasonality that's going to draw down inventory.

As a reminder, to ask a question from a phone, dial star 9. Or if you have joined the call over Zoom, press the raise hand button at the bottom of the screen. We will now pass for further questions. Our next question comes from the telephone line ending in 6863. Please state your full name and company name before asking your question. You may need to press star six to unmute yourself.

Can you guys hear me? Hello? Yes, we can hear you.

Sorry about that. Hi, everyone. It's Felipe from Scotiabank. Thanks for the space for questions. Really, a quick one, Gerardo, on what your views are on the consumer in Mexico. It seems that there's... a few reports this quarter with some companies, typically things that are engaged in liquids or in cold distribution like your case in some of the impulse brands and also traffic. where weather was a very important factor. We've heard that from a number of companies. But it has also seemed that things that are not very reliant on weather have a very okay performance. Would that be still your assessment? I mean, implying from your numbers that's the case, but just wanted to hear your thoughts on a more, on the less objective side and more the subjective side of things of what you're seeing on the ground.

Thank you, Felipe. So, well, when you think about weather, well, we got hit in our ice cream business, both. So we saw traffic in DSD going down. And I think that inconvenience across the board was the same issue. So there was definitely lower traffic on our street clients, on the mom and pops, convenience, et cetera. There's also a lot of segmentation across the country. So we also, in some part of the countries, we saw some shifts from from mom and pops to modern retail. Obviously that doesn't affect the whole number of consumption, but there are some trends that can emerge from that. Secondly, when we see our total volume was flat. We grew 1% involved in the four. I can say that there are some categories that have special situations, seasonality, like tomato puree, where the fresh tomato prices are very low. We had a great crop last year, plus the higher... supply from exporters competes directly with our tomato puree. So that category is lower specifically for this issue. But in general terms, I think that consumption, we believe as a company that consumption is soft across the board. And comps is very important, Felipe, because last year, the second quarter of last year, we grew 5% in volume. And obviously, there was another environment over the elections where typically there's a lot of money in the streets. So I wouldn't make a case on second quarter because of comps. What we really think is that we're going to start growing again, probably tomato puree will take a while until all this excess supply dries, but we are confident that consumption will pick up starting in the late third quarter.

Well, that's very clear and very helpful, guys.

I think that'll do for my questions. Congrats on the performances. Okay.

Thank you, Felipe.

We will pause once more for any further questions.

We have not received any further questions at this point. So that concludes our question and answer session. I would like to hand the call back over to Gerardo for his closing remarks.

This earnings conference call, if you have any questions or comment, don't hesitate to contact us and we'll see you in the next call. Thank you. Thank you, Leonor.

Thank you, you may now disconnect