Kimberly-Clark De Mex A

Excuse me, everyone. We now have our speakers in conference. Please be aware that each of your line is in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's presentation, we will open the floor for questions, and at that time, instructions will be given. I would now like to turn the conference over to Pablo Gonzalez, CEO. Please go ahead.

Pablo Gonzalez Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for participating on the call. I hope you and your families are all safe and well, and we wish you all the best for 2022. Let me make some brief introductory comments, and then I'll pass it on to Javier to discuss fourth quarter results and full year results. After a very good 2020, in which we posted records in both top line and bottom line, as well as very strong margins, we were at the high end of our target range, 2021 proved challenging, particularly the second half of the year. Slow growth of domestic consumption, COVID impacts and sales comparisons of related products, the continued disruptions caused by the pandemic, and especially the rapid and unprecedented commodity and raw material cost increases all weighed on our results. The cost increases accelerated sequentially throughout the year, and our actions to mitigate their impact are underway but take longer to materialize. Also, In the short term, our volumes and market positions have been affected, as is always the case, when we implement price increases. That is the crux of the fourth quarter results. Having said all this, we are confident that such actions will allow us to sequentially improve results in the first half of the year, and will position KCM to have a strong second half and a good overall 2022. There is still plenty of volatility, particularly around raw material costs, and it is not clear when they may stabilize and eventually come down, but our expectation is that when it happens, it will be gradual, moderate, and over a prolonged period of time. Accordingly, the actions we are taking span across all our operations and areas, and over the course of the year, will put us in a much better position to show much improved and stronger results. Challenging, yes, but also exciting, since it's forcing us to find opportunities to further improve how we run the business. KCM has always been very efficient and successful, and we're sure that as we get out of this period, we will be even more so and uniquely positioned to continue to grow and post industry-leading margins. It's very important to mention that during the year we maintained and reinforced the various measures, protocols, and actions to protect the health of our employees and their families, our number one priority. We also work closely with communities and suppliers to ensure the community the continuity of our operations. We are proud of our success in this regard and in assuring that all our customers and consumers have access to our products as we continue to operate our facilities without any meaningful disruption. Javier will now take you through the results and then I'll provide some color on the context and the actions we're implementing.

Thank you, Pablo. Good morning, everyone. During the quarter, our sales were 11.7 billion pesos, a 1.2% increase versus the fourth quarter of 2020. Volume well down 4%, with price and mix contributing 5.2%. Consumer products decreased 5.2% as we continued to face this low consumer environment, and volume comparisons were adversely affected by strong COVID-related sales in 2020. Pricing actions taken in the fourth quarter also impacted volume and market positions in the short term. Away-from-home product sales increased 16.5% as the economy starts to reopen and were somewhat above the fourth quarter of 2019 pre-pandemic levels. We expect they will continue to show strong sequential improvement. Export sales grew 52.2% and sales of finished products doubled from last year. Cost of goods sold increased 15.8%. Against last year, every commodity and raw material category compared negatively. POP was up approximately 30% depending on the grade. Imported recycled fiber prices grew close to 60%, and domestic recycled fibers and fluff averaged high single-digit increases. On the personal care side, Superabsorbent materials were up more than 50% and resins more than 90%. Finally, energy and natural gases also compared negatively, with the latter growing more than 80%. The FX was slightly lower, averaging 1% less. Our cost reduction program once again had very good results and yielded approximately 350 million pesos of savings in the quarter. These savings are mainly at the cost of goods sold level and are generated by sourcing materials, improvement, and process efficiencies. Gross profit decreased 22.0%, and margin was 29.7% for the quarter. HG&A expenses were 2% higher year over year and practically flat as a percentage of sales. Operating profit decreased 38.3%, and the operating margin was 14.0%. We generated 2.1 billion pesos of EBITDA, a 32.6% decrease, and EBITDA margin was 17.8%. Cost of financing was 420 million pesos in the fourth quarter, compared to 424 million in the same period last year. During the quarter, we had a 13 million FX gain, which compares to a 3 million loss last year. Net income for the quarter was 790 million pesos, with earnings per share of 26 cents. Net income was arbitrarily and negatively affected by a one non-time cash deferred tax credit cancellation related to 4E. For the whole year, our sales were 46.9 billion pesos, an all-time record despite the 4E recall impact. Evita was 10.3 billion pesos, a healthy overall number despite the strong cost increases, and was 22% of sales. While this margin fell below our long-term target, it's still a very solid margin in our industry. Net income was 4.5 billion pesos and represented 10% of sales. Savings from the cost reduction program amounted to 1.4 billion pesos. As we had anticipated, during the year we ramped up our CapEx and we invested 2.2 billion pesos. We have an aggressive CapEx program for the next two years where we will invest in excess of $250 million in technology improvements, cost reductions and efficiencies, and capacity additions. We maintain a very strong and healthy balance sheet. Our total cash position at the end of the year was 12 billion pesos. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 1.4 times, with an EBITDA to net interest coverage of six times. Thank you. Back to Pablo.

Thanks, Javier. So let me give you some color of the context. First, the economic and domestic consumption. After what has proved to be more of a rebound than a full-fledged recovery, Mexico's economy lost momentum and slowed down at the end of 2021. As we get into the new year, given inflation pressures and the lack of growth accelerators, the Mexican economy is expected to grow moderately. It will need some time to recover its pre-pandemic levels. Consumers are particularly stretched as they've had to dig into their savings to make ends meet and are facing strong inflation. On the positive side, record remittances and increases in wages are providing some relief. So overall, we expect domestic consumptions to grow, albeit at a slow pace. Second, the market. We expect an aggressive retail environment as clients try to attract consumers while cautiously managing their working capital. With respect to competition, they took advantage of the fact that we started to move prices during the fourth quarter. and that had an impact on results. We're all facing the same cost pressures, and we would expect their pricing and promotional activities to reflect it. Third, and most importantly, our actions. As I mentioned during my opening comments, we're looking at all operations and areas of our business and have identified several opportunities. We have put together action plans to act on these opportunities, which include pricing and promotional effectiveness behind our revenue growth management efforts, but also actions to strengthen our team and execution capabilities, accelerate the innovation pipeline, leverage our multi-brand and multi-channel strategy, improve efficiencies and productivities at our mills, as well as to strengthen our cost reduction program and squeeze working capital to generate more cash. Some examples are spending behind brands and in the different channels is being optimized through our RGM models with very good results. We have restructured and strengthened our sales and go-to-market team. We have improved almost all of our product lineup in bathroom tissue and will do the same in most categories during the year. We are adding new equipment to offer better products at a lower cost. We expect to achieve record savings in our cost reduction program, and we are streamlining processes, products, and operations to reduce complexities, add more value, and act with greater speed. To this end, as a concrete example, we will be integrating 4E to achieve synergies and increase growth opportunities while implementing strict control and quality measures. Overall, we're implementing a comprehensive set of actions to greatly improve our speed to market, product offering to consumers, business plans with retailers, and every facet of our business. As mentioned at the start of the call, we are confident that these actions will allow us to improve results sequentially during the first half of the year and put KCM in a position to have a strong second half in 2022. Finally, consistent with our long track record of shareholder friendly policies, at our February board meeting and shareholders meeting, we will be proposing a dividend payment at the highest possible level. That concludes our opening remarks. Let me turn it over for questions.

Thank you, sir. At this time, we will open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the one key that is star one on your touchtone phone now. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, please press star two. Again, that is star one to ask a question. Thank you. Our first question will come from Ben Thur with Barclays.

Yeah, good morning, Javier, Pablo. Well, happy new year, first of all. So clearly, that was, I guess, not the quarter you were hoping for. Now, my question really is, could you elaborate a little bit on The initiatives, you touched on a few of them, but in order to get to the sequential improvement, is it going to be a combination of continuously focusing on price increases while at the same time hoping for some sequential easing on the cost pressure? Or do you still see on a sequential base that cost is actually getting worse, but your pricing initiatives are going to help you offset that? Just to understand a little bit that sequential commentary. That would be my first question. Thank you.

Sure, Ben. Thanks for participating in the call, and likewise, all the best for 2022. Look, as mentioned, there's still a lot of volatility when it comes to the cost scenario. Our expectations right now is that some of the raw materials will increase sequentially, first quarter versus fourth quarter last year. where we're seeing a little bit of a relief is in the resins side. But even in that case, all raw materials will compare negatively versus last year in the first quarter, and some of them with high percentage increases. So our actions, one, of course, has to do with greater price realization. And as we mentioned at our prior call in October, we are in the process of implementing a price increase. Part of it is already in the market, but it will not be fully reflected until the end of the quarter. So that will certainly help, and we will continue to look for additional opportunities on price realization. And in addition to that, as I mentioned, we're looking at every facet of the business to see where we can streamline become more efficient, more productive, and reduce costs. And we have some very interesting cost reduction programs coming our way. Of course, they don't happen immediately, but they will start to happen Some of it will be reflected in the first quarter and certainly by the second quarter of this year. So overall, costs will continue to be a pressure, but our pricing efforts together with everything that we're doing internally to become more efficient and reduce costs should allow us to show some sequential improvement. And that should be more robust by the second quarter of this year, and we expect that to put us in a very good position for a strong second half of the year. I hope that that explanation helps.

Okay, yeah, that was very clear. And then just on the competitive landscape, I mean, clearly... you lost essentially in the last quarter through volume what you were gaining on top line through price mix. I mean, you were up some 5% and then you lost some 4% volumes. From the past, and I remember we've seen this years ago and in similar ways happening, that there is a quite significant elasticity on the demand side if you start getting more aggressive on the pricing side. Now, What is your expectation for the competitive environment and them? I mean, they face the same pressure, right? They need the same raw materials. So what is your expectation of them kind of following on the pricing side and with you having done all these pricing initiatives, gaining back that market share? coincidentally as well into the second half, and that's why you're comfortable for the second half? Or do you think there is risk for an additional delay on that market share recovery from what you're losing right now?

Yes, Ben. Well, look, this is not very different from what we've seen in the past. There are certainly some other factors that weighed in the volume loss for the first quarter. But whenever we lead price increases and competitors lag, we see the pinch in our shares and our volumes in the short term. So, again, there are other factors, but when it comes to that, it's really no different than that. maybe a little bit in the sense that we started to move on pricing and they were very, very aggressive during the fourth quarter. Our read of that is that they had compromises with the retail channel and they couldn't get out of them. They moved ahead with it and that had a negative impact. But as you mentioned, we're all feeling the same pressures. So we would expect their pricing and promotional activities to reflect that. And we expect that as that happens, our shares will come back to more our normal levels. And we have already started to see shares tick back up in certain categories and in certain channels. And again, and if they move forward, that should allow us to recover our shares more quickly. And hopefully it will be before the second half of the year again, but it depends on when they move into the market.

Okay. Perfect. Pablo Javier, leave it here, and thanks for all the clarification.

Thank you, Ben.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jen Spryce with Borgen Stanley.

Yes, hello. Thank you, Pablo and Javier, and also happy New Year and best wishes for you and your family. So on that same line, I just wanted to make a question on the price increases. How much of the 7%, which was on top of the 4% you had announced earlier last year, have you already implemented? Could it be the case that you end up implementing less than 7% due to the reaction of the competition? Yes.

Thanks for the question, Jens. Look, on pricing, let me divide it because I think it will be helpful for everyone to understand a little bit better. First, when it comes to consumer products, very important to note that all businesses showed sequential improvements in pricing. But when we take a look at pricing versus last year, there's no doubt we're further along in implementing this price increases in the personal care categories than we are in tissue. But again, as mentioned, we expect the latest round to be fully implemented by the end of the quarter. And we do expect that to be reflected by the end of the quarter. Again, we need to see what happens in the market and how competitors move. But assuming that given the pressures they do move on pricing, we do expect this to be fully reflected by the end of the quarter. Then there's our professional business, which takes a little longer because a big proportion of sales are tied to contracts. And we're in the process of renegotiating those contracts. So no doubt in the fourth quarter, professional business was a drag on our margins. But we're being very successful or fairly successful in those renegotiations. And that should start to fall through, some of it this quarter, the rest next quarter. So, again, sequentially, we should also see some improvements in that business. And as we finalize this round of increases and analyze what happens in the market, what are competitors' reactions, and, of course, take a look at how raw materials and commodities are behaving, we'll determine what our next step should be.

Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. And on that note, could you remind us when you reset your contract for bulk purchases? I think it was early each year, right? If I can remember correctly.

Yes. Yes, they're already reset.

Okay. Got it. Thank you both.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bob Ford with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Bob, your line is open. Please make sure your phone is not on mute.

Thank you and good morning, everybody. Pablo, could you remind us where you are right now with respect to the split of recycled versus new fiber or virgin fiber? and the mix between imported versus domestic post-consumer waste, and is the pricing or the price increases that you're seeing in terms of that imported recycled fiber or post-consumer waste, is that temporal and due to supply chain bottlenecks, or is it more structural in nature?

Yes. Hi, Bob. Thanks for being on the call. Again, roughly recycled versus virgin fibers were 70-30 range. And then when it comes within recycled imported versus national, we're roughly 60% imported, 40% national. Now, particularly on the imported side, This is a little bit where we've seen price increases and we'll continue to see price pressure in the first quarter versus fourth quarter. And it really has to do with the situation that the labor shortage that is going on in the U.S. together with the COVID pandemic because a lot of people are not showing up to work and there's less collection right now than there was in the fourth quarter or even last year. But we expect that to normalize at some point. It's not structurally that there should be less material collected. It's just that at this particular point in time, again, given those two factors, there's less material being collected. And then it hasn't been as easy to bring it from the U.S. to Mexico as was in the past. Again, some supply chain disruptions there. It also has to do with some labor shortages. But we believe all of that will work itself out here hopefully shortly, and that will hopefully take some pressure off recycled materials. Because as imported goes up and all of us turn to the domestic market for our products, needs in recycled fiber, of course, those prices then get pressured. So as this gets resolved in the U.S., I think we will see some relief overall for recycled fibers.

That's great. And, you know, given the greater sustained and possibly structural demand for things like surface cleaners or hand sanitizer, disposable masks, in many other things in this kind of new endemic COVID environment. How are you thinking about product enhancements or maybe better leveraging the Quattro brand in terms of innovation in some of those areas?

When you take a look at the different categories, it's interesting because there are some that are still being impacted by the pandemic. notwithstanding that it's come into a different mode, if you will, but we're still not back to, let me call it, normal everyday life. So some personal care categories are still being impacted, diapers, fem care, and that's why we're seeing slower volume growth in those categories because as people are still staying home to a greater degree than they did pre-pandemic times, They're using less of such products. But we expect, again, that as we work through this, through the pandemic here, the first in January, hopefully February, we start to get out of it, that we get back to a more normal way of living. I think we will see those categories start to grow again, and that will certainly be helpful to our business. Second, there will be, of course, some new habits in terms of cleaning products and making sure that you have enough products around to protect yourself. And so we continue to see some opportunities there and cleaning wipes and antibacterial or antiseptic now called gels, face masks, et cetera. So certainly not at the levels that we saw during last year or two years ago, particularly 2020 and early 2021. But some of those habits will stay with us, so that will help. And then when it comes to 4E, and I mentioned this, that's a great example of how we're looking to streamline and make our operations more efficient. We've taken control of that business, and we will take advantage of the synergies and take advantage, of course, of pushing their products through our network of partners of, uh, salespeople and marketing people and, uh, be very aggressive about it. So we see, we see very good opportunities to bring that together with our Escudo brand and our, uh, to create a, a complete or holistic soap, uh, uh, business liquid and bars, uh, and leverage that, uh, to become more aggressive in the market and, and continue to grow those, uh, those businesses. So, uh, quite a few opportunities out there for us, uh, as, uh, things start to normalize and improve. Hopefully, domestic consumption, as I mentioned, which has been trending down since April, and it's still lower than pre-pandemic levels. But hopefully, it will continue to grow. Economists are expecting that it will grow between 3% and 4% this year. Hopefully, that's the case, and we can take advantage of it. So our actions, our innovations... streamlining together with our price initiatives and recovering share should put us in a much better position throughout the year.

That's great to hear, Pablo. And just to confirm, 4e was not distributed through the KCM channels in Mexico?

No, it wasn't distributed. It had its own operation. We weighed in when it was needed. Again, we wanted that operation to operate apart from Kimber Clark to Mexico. Now we will be bringing it inside and expect some interesting synergies both on the cost side but also on the sales side going forward.

Of course. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Bob.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ulysses Ardote with JP Morgan.

Hi, Pablo Javier. All the best for this year and thanks for the space for questions. Just a couple here on my side. So I think the first one, a follow up on the consumer dynamics. But are you sensing any trade down across categories from that maybe more challenging consumer scenario that you were speaking about and how maybe we should think about this going into 2022? And then on the second question, on the CAPEX guidance that you provided, and thank you very much for that, are you able to give us any color on what will the main projects be there and where the main investments will go to? Any details here would be really helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Sure, Ulises. Thanks for being in the call. Let me first say that we are at this point not seeing any trade down. We have a couple of categories that might be experiencing some of it, but overall for our consumer products businesses, we are not seeing trade down so far. Let's see how this continues to evolve because of course there are inflation pressures out there. So we'll see how the consumer behaves. But again, if that happens, our multi-tier, multi-strategy, multi-channel strategy should help us to perform well even in that scenario. But Very clearly, at this point, we haven't seen a big impact from trade down. When it comes to CAPEX, as we mentioned, it follows quite a few areas, technology improvements. We are bringing certain technologies that will allow us to bring very important improvements to market in quite a few of our products. Many of those improvements in technology will also allow us to reduce costs. and particularly in certain areas and closer to the end of the year we will be seeing some really starting in the second quarter, third quarter, and also at the end of the year we'll be seeing some capacity additions in certain areas that will allow us to restructure and be in a much better position in certain of our businesses. I will be able to provide quite a bit more color on this by our next call because one of these very important investments will be starting up in March. But you'll understand that I want to be careful not alerting too many people about this before it happens. But again, come the next call, we'll be able to provide quite a bit more color on what these improvements are. But we're very excited. We're very excited to have the opportunity to invest more And again, we're seeing great opportunities in technology, cost, and efficiencies, and we're running behind them very, very quickly so that they can impact our results positively as quickly as possible.

That's perfect. Thanks so much for that caller. And maybe if I can get one last question in here. Can you give us like any sense on the magnitude of that deferred tax credit cancellation that you kind of discussed? Just trying to make sense a little bit of the number here.

Hello, Ulises. Yes, it was around 40 million pesos. As we, as Pablo mentioned, as we're taking more control over the 4E operations and we're running and finally getting out of the recall process in the U.S., which affected significantly the past two years' results, we decided that the U.S. operation will probably, we will continue exporting, but on a different model, and we decided to take that cancellation of the tax credit.

Okay, super helpful. Thank you so much, Javier, Pablo.

All the best. You're welcome.

Thank you. Again, as a reminder, please press star 1 to join the queue. Our next question comes from Rodrigo Alcantara with UBS Bank.

Hi, good morning, Pablo. Thanks for taking my question. My question is regarding Pablo's initial remarks on the aggressive retail environment. Just wondering if you can elaborate a bit on this. I remember some years ago we also have some issues with this stocking from retailers just curious on how different or how similar this is from the past. My second question would be regarding private label. I don't know if you can comment, perhaps you mentioned that competition in the fourth quarter was very aggressive. I don't know if you can break down and perhaps how the competition was, how aggressive was from private labels or commercial brands? Those would be my two questions. Thank you, Pablo.

Thanks, Rodrigo. I'm glad to comment a little bit more on this. Look, when I mentioned retail environment and the aggressiveness, you've got to take into consideration that for the most part, again, domestic consumption is growing, but it is growing through price, not through volumes. And what that means is, I mean, the pie is not growing as much as, of course, we would all like it to. So whenever that happens, everyone's trying to get a bigger piece of the pie. And that's not just among our competitors, but certainly within the retail environment. So among competitors, what we've seen is during the fourth quarter, still very aggressive sales. or hope that that will be coming. And then in the retail environment, they're, of course, all trying to get traffic into the stores, getting the consumers in there, since, again, the pie is not growing as much and trying to get that ticket up. So aggressive, I wouldn't say anything that we hadn't seen before. It's just that there's a big disconnect as we're moving forth with pricing and the rest are not that you see that disconnect. And I would say most of the aggressiveness comes from the branded players. Private label, as usual, just maintains certain price and, of course, is supported to stronger or lesser degrees depending on the market. on the retailer, but really where we've seen most aggressiveness comes from branded players. Again, nothing we haven't seen before, but maybe a little unexpected given the cost scenario.

Yeah, that's very helpful. Thank you very much, Pablo. Happy New Year.

Thank you, Rodrigo. Same to you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bernardo Maltica with Compass Bank.

Hi, Pablo. Thank you for taking my call first. And that's for 2022. Just in terms of margins, if you could just detail a little bit. Before the fourth quarter, before the price pressures, What was your objective for EBITDA margin for 2022? And how has this changed after seeing the fourth quarter results? And after seeing that there is still a lot of pressure in raw materials and commodity prices, do you have a specific objective? Do you think that EBITDA margin growth will be slower than expected for 2022? Thank you.

Thanks, Bernardo. Thanks for the question. Look, given how volatile everything is out there, it's hard to really put a number on the EBITDA margin for 2022. What I can say is that we have our target is for a very important increase from where we stand right now and a clear path to getting back to our long-term range of 25 to 27, which we are very confident we'll be able to get back there at some point. So what we're working on very aggressively, too, is to show sequential improvements that by the end of the year are very important versus where we are right now, and that clearly set us in the path to get back to our target range.

Perfect. Thank you so much, Paulo.

I hope that helps, Bernardo.

Yeah, it does help a lot. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, please press star 1 if you would like to ask a question. Our next question comes from Mohammed Emmett with SGP.

Hi, guys. I hope my mic is open. Anyhow, thank you very much for the opportunity to ask a question. Hope you guys are all well. Just a quick short question. Could you just give us roughly what the consumer volumes did in Q4?

Sure, Mohamed. Great to hear from you and all the best. Sure. Our volumes in consumer products were basically 9.9 and a half lower versus last year, and we had an improvement of 5%. 5% in price, roughly. So that's how the growth is comprised of. Okay, that's great.

That's for Q4.

If I can give... Yeah, for Q4. And if I can just briefly give you... I mean, I've talked a little bit about why the volume was down, but let me just, if I may, summarize, Mohamed, so that it's very clear why we saw this... this contraction. And again, several factors. One, some lack of growth in some of our categories, given that we're not back to normal everyday life. Some compared negatively because of COVID versus last year. Also, lower domestic consumption. It's been coming down since April and still lower than pre-pandemic levels. Our pricing initiatives with competitors have not followed so far. And finally, which I think we haven't mentioned too much of, but we did see several clients, particularly wholesalers, adjust their inventory. Again, there's concern about the rate of growth going forward, and we see retailers being very cautious with their working capital. So those are the different factors that impacted our volumes in the fourth quarter.

If I may follow up on the last point, the wholesaler inventory adjustment, isn't it a bit counter to what normally happens, usually ahead of price increases? So I would assume Q4, I think you were in the middle of you raising prices, that people would have stocked up ahead of it, or it's different this time?

Well, they did stock on some items, not on others. And again, because the pricing did not happen all at once, but we're working through it and we expect it to be fully implemented by the end of this quarter. There probably wasn't a great need for them to overstock all at once. So we're working through it with them. That's one. And then you also have to consider that in our categories, so far it's only us that have moved, but there's many categories that are moving, and retailers are also working through that. And as they see this push for price increases, they see inflation coming up a little bit, but they're concerned with the rate of growth going forward. Yeah, we've seen quite a few of them be more... cautious than they have in the past, no doubt.

Okay, that's great. Thank you very much, guys. Best of luck for the next year.

Thank you, Mohamed. And yes, we expect to have a much better year. Thank you very much.

Thank you. With that, I am showing no further questions in the queue. I do apologize. We do have one final question with Paul from Goldman Sachs.

Hello. Hi, guys. Thanks for the call. Can we get a little bit more color on the export business? You mentioned strong sales volumes again and finished product continuing to gain share in the mix. What's the outlook for that business this year, the next couple of years, and should we expect further integration into the Kimber Corp. supply chain as they also look for more efficiencies? Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks for the question, Paul. Yeah, I mean, the business has been performing very, very well. Our expectation is that it will continue to do so here for the foreseeable future. Some of the sales that we have in the export business are not, don't have, let me call it contracts for the long term or agreements, not contracts, but agreements for the long term. But as we've performed well there and have showed that we can deliver good a great quality and that we're very reliable. I think more and more KCC is turning over to look at us as a reliable source of products and that's why we've been able to grow this business and again we have some very good projects with them and we expect that to continue to grow and we will are having and will continue to have conversations with them as to how we can further help and eventually, hopefully, look for further integration and think of a very efficient and cost-effective manufacturing footprint in North America. So we will continue those discussions with them, and we'll continue to be a very good partner to them, and hopefully we'll be able to continue to grow that business at a very, very nice rate.

Can you remind me again what percentage of your sales sort of this year that represented the export. And these are all, the majority are sales in dollars and hard currency?

Yeah. Sales are in dollars and it roughly represents about 8% of our sales. 8% of total sales. Great. Thank you. Yeah, that's all exports. That's finished products plus a pan roll sales. And within that 8%, finished products, as you mentioned, continues to gain ground rapidly.

And any thoughts on where that 8% can go in kind of the midterm?

It's hard to tell, Paul. I would love to give you a number, but it really will depend on how, together with Kimberley Car Corporation, we could come up with a strategy that benefits both in an important way. So, again, we... We're continually talking to them and we will continue to have these discussions and hopefully this will continue to be a bigger part of the business, but we still have to work through that.

Understood. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you. As one final reminder, please press star 1 if you would like to join the queue. Again, that is star 1 if you would like to ask a question. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over for closing remarks.

Well, thank you again all for participating on the call. We really, really appreciate it. Thanks for the questions. As you all mentioned, tough quarter, but we are confident that the actions we're taking will allow us to improves results sequentially, as I mentioned during the first half, and puts us in a position to have a strong second half and a strong 2022. And we are working diligently and hard to make that happen, and we're excited about the opportunities and how we will, I'm sure, come out of this whole period. So thanks again. Thanks for your questions, and our very, very best wishes for all of you and your families in 2022. Look forward to talking to you after the first quarter results. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect.