Golden Cariboo Resources Ltd.

Good morning and welcome to GCC's second quarter 2024 earnings conference results, earnings results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call is being recorded and that all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Please also note that a slide presentation accompanies today's webcast. The link is available on the company's IR website at gcc.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Sahori Agushi, head of investor relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me. With me today are Mr. Enrique Escalante, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Strecker, Chief Financial Officer. The earnings release detailing this quarter's results was released yesterday after market close and is available on GCC's IR website. This conference call is also being broadcast live within the Investors section at gcc.com. and both the webcast replay of the call and transcript will be available on the same site approximately one hour after the end of today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by this forward-looking statement. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in yesterday's press release and in our quarterly report file with the Mexican Stock Exchange. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update this statement as a result of new information or future events. With that, let me now turn the call over to Enrique.

Thank you, Saori. Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. We're pleased with our second quarter performance. particularly in light of what has become a dynamic and complex demand environment. Certain aspects of GCC's results were not in line with our expectations for the quarter, as sales for the second quarter of 2024 decreased by 1%. However, thanks mostly to our flexible fuel mix strategy and cost and expense management, we were able to increase our year-on-year EBITDA by 1%. Importantly, we delivered a 31.1% EBITDA margin for the second quarter, with benefit of our continued consistent throughout the organization. This morning, I will begin my remarks with an update on GCC's progress related to our three strategic pillars, our people, profit, and planet. I will then turn to our key markets before passing it over to Mike, who will go into more depth on our second quarter financial results.

Talking with our people.

We continue to strengthen safety throughout our organization, leveraging GCC's safety strategy plan. During the first half of 2024, our ongoing focus resulted in a 14% year-on-year decrease in last 12 months recordable injuries. Also, for our teams, increased participation in GCC's serious injury and fatality prevention system and improved focus on exposure controls. During the second quarter, we continued implementing the second phase of GCC's safety leadership training program. an ongoing campaign to increase awareness and empower our workforce with the insights and tools to drive progress in our company. We also implemented key projects to further strengthen our world-class safety culture model.

Turning to our profit pillar.

As I have noted, we remain laser focused on cost control throughout GCC and the second quarter was no exception. During the quarter, we took proactive measures to manage and control costs, and we're closely monitoring how things progress relative to our business to recalibrate accordingly as the year unfolds, with an eye towards ensuring we achieve our target to reach 36% EBITDA margin in 2025. Further, We continue to leverage our flexible fuel strategy, as well as our renewable and natural gas-based power contracts as an important lever in our cost containment strategy. GCC will also continue to leverage our unique competitive advantage of quickly pivoting to low-cost routes whenever appropriate. Regarding GCC's planet pillar, we're making progress related to blended cement production and commercialization, as well as increased alternative fuel substitution capacity, especially at our Samalayuka plant, with the new pre-poll system now reaching 40% substitution of coal and natural gas. Regarding DTC's first pilot solar project in the United States at our Trident Montana plant, we progressed on the project's phase two during the second quarter of 2024 and anticipate this project will be completed in the second half of 2024 upsetting 22% of the plants require electricity. We are analyzing how this can be scaled aligned with our process to investing to install smaller scope projects to then assess the feasibility to scale further. As two important closing comments, in May, we published our inaugural integrated report for the fiscal year 2023. This landmark report makes a significant milestone in GCC's sustainability journey and highlights our financial success, meaningful progress on our ESG initiatives, and GCC's alignment to international standards as we progress towards our 2030 reduction targets. Along these lines, our progress against our stated CO2 target continued in the second quarter, with 2.5% year-to-date decrease in CO2 gross intensity per ton of cementitious material in comparison to 2023.

Turning now to an update on our markets.

During the second quarter, GCC took significant steps to secure and increase our footprint in South Lake City. We strengthened our position with one of the region's most significant concrete producers, securing a base volume. Further, we secured a terminal agreement with a logistics distribution supplier of construction materials, enhancing GCC's distribution capabilities and enabling us to better serve customers throughout the greater South Lake City region, solidifying our growth and long-term presence in this important market.

Moving to results.

Second quarter U.S. cement and concrete volumes decreased by 7.1% and 14.3% respectively. The current interest rate environment coupled with continued construction cost inflation is pressuring demand for residential and light commercial projects industry-wide. This was compound by adverse weather effects in GCC's northern region, specifically South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota on our second quarter sales. Preliminary data also reflects a year-to-date 3% year-on-year decrease in overall U.S. cement consumption in May due to warehouse market saturation, slowing commercial real estate, and high mortgage rates coupled with a more than 30% increase in construction material costs compared to 2019. However, This will be offset by GCC's continued progress on infrastructure projects, including ongoing work on the Denver Airport, the next phase of the El Paso I-10 interstate, as well as a paving project in Texas, and the expected restart of the Sunsea Wind and Transmission Project, the largest clean energy infrastructure project in United States history. CompTIA stalled for two months in the second quarter, further contributing to the quarter's volume shortfall, but it is slated to resume in the third quarter of this year. Oil and gas-related cement demand remains strong, which uses this client of setting volume shortages in other segments during the second quarter. Along these lines, on July 1st, we implemented a $15 per ton price increase for our oil well clients. As a brief update on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, related infrastructure demand remains consistent with normal levels for the quarter. Today, we are not seeing the Jobs Act driven delta the industry had initially expected. As part of this, incremental funds appear to have been upset by the construction cost inflation to which I have referred. Turning to Mexico. Favorable fuel and power costs enabled solid second quarter margins. Results were influenced by reduced demand ahead of the Mexican elections, also with deceleration in industrial projects in Juarez due to continued power supply constraints. However, construction of the Terranova power substation requires continued during the second quarter and remains on track for completion in the second half of this year, noting that the final timing remains uncertain. As we have flagged in prior quarters, the mining segment contraction we have seen in Mexico since 2022 continues. In contrast, the housing construction segment continues at a strong pace. GCC second quarter cement and concrete volume therefore decreased by 7.1 and 12.4% respectively. To conclude, while our second quarter 2024 sales were below expectations, continued cost efficiency measures and our commercial strategy enable us to deliver strong bottom line results for the first half of the year. With that, let me turn the call over to Mike for his financial review.

Thank you, Enrique, and good morning to everyone. Before I turn to our financial results for the second quarter of 2024, I would like to reiterate Enrique's comment that this quarter we navigated a slow market environment with related headwinds on our financial results. However, and importantly, our results also reflect continued successful strategy execution through our focus on resilient markets and segments with the prudent cost management that Enrique noted. Consolidated sales for the second quarter decreased 1% year over year, reflecting decreased volumes. Revenue from our U.S. operations remained essentially flat, despite cement and concrete volumes decreasing by 7.1% and 14.3% year over year, respectively. Further, this volume decrease was partially offset by our commercial excellence work and by the oil and gas segment, which remained robust during the quarter. Mexico sales decreased by 2.8% year on year. Volumes of cement and concrete sold decreased by 7.1% and 12.4% respectively, due to continued power supply constraints as yet flagged in our prior quarter's remarks. Second quarter cost of sales as a percentage of sales was 60.9%, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points compared to the second quarter of 2023. This reflects decreased fuel and production costs and the absence of the cost related to the de-bottlenecking project at our Samalayuka cement plant. These were partially offset by increased maintenance expenses. SG&A as a percentage of sales for the second quarter 2024 reached 8.7%, a 70 basis point year-over-year increase driven by the exchange rate effect and investment in our corporate functions. As a result, EBITDA margin for the quarter increased 70 basis points compared to the prior year's quarter to 37.1%. Second quarter EBITDA increased by 1% year over year. Net financial income was $15.2 million. compared to 4.5 million dollars reported for the second quarter 2023 resulting from higher cash balance for the second quarter of this year consolidated net income for the quarter was 89.6 million dollars a nine percent increase compared to the second quarter of 2023 free cash flow for the quarter was 29 million dollars a reflection of decreased cash taxes and working capital needs during the quarter, higher financial income, and increased EBITDA, as I had noted previously. This was partially offset by increased maintenance capital. BCC's general shareholder meeting held in April declared an annual dividend of 1.5369 Mexican pesos which is paid on May 22nd. We ended the second quarter of 2024 with $879 million of cash and cash equivalent with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of negative 0.78 times.

We're executing against the following priorities that we set for the full year 2024.

We're focusing on general maintenance and reinvesting in our plans. Second, we're optimizing GCC's overall distribution network. And third, we're directing capital expenditures towards our sustainability initiatives. We continue executing on the ODESA plan expansion according to our schedule with related capital investments. During the quarter, we also made continued progress on GCC's sustainability-focused projects, expanding our GCC carbon capture dedicated project team while actively working on alternative fuels initiatives. Turning to our progress related to M&A during the second quarter. Discussions with potential targets within the cement sector continue. Furthermore, we continue to build out our criteria for potential targets within the aggregate space. We're looking for targets that, A, are aggregate-led companies with substantial reserves, ensuring sustainable business. companies which are located within GCC's footprint, enabling us to leverage our existing network and resources, and C, businesses that are scalable and connectable with other potential targets or existing facilities, enabling us to create an interconnected network in the future. We have identified potential targets within these guidelines and remain actively engaged in discussions.

I will now return the call to Enrique to share his closing remarks. Thank you, Mike.

In closing, while navigating a second quarter 2024 scenario characterized by pressure demand, GCC's streamlined operations provided a considerable advantage from a competitive perspective, enabling the company to achieve strong profitability margins and cash generation. Given the detailed insights shared during this call and the current dynamic and complex demand environment, we now anticipate that our US cement and Mexico concrete volumes will finish the year either flat or with a slight decrease. However, our proactive measures and strategic initiatives position us well to navigate these challenges. We remain confident in our ability to adapt to market conditions and to continue delivering on our estimated EBITDA growth for the year and on the long-term value creation for our stakeholders. I will now turn the call over to your questions. Operator, please begin with the first question.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you.

Our first question is from Pablo Recalde with Santander, Mexico. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, hello, Enrique Mike. I have two questions. The first one is on the guidance. If I understand correctly, do you now think the cement problems in Mexico should be flourished for the year, but any type of growth should continue around that single digit? So I just want to double-check on that. And the other question is on the maintenance topics line. How should we expect maintenance capex for the second half of the year?

That's it. Thank you, Pablo. Good morning.

Yeah, let me reiterate exactly what we said for the guidance that we're giving for the second part of the year. We are only changing volumes of cement in the US from a low single digit to flat or probably a slight decrease. In Mexico, we are only changing concrete volumes from a low single digit to flat or again probably a slight decrease. Those are the only two Aspects of our guidance that are being changed everything else remain as you know, I mean as we I mean announced in previous quarters I Want to reiterate that we still expect to achieve the EBITDA growth.

I mean that we talk about I mean in previous conference Okay, Pablo good morning, thanks for your question is my

On the maintenance topics, as you saw, the second quarter we executed against our plans and our targets with a good rate of maintenance topics implemented. We have installed some very strict and regular processes to review and to be able to execute on that. And therefore, I expect that we will continue in the third and fourth quarter according to our plan. And again, our guidance is to spend about $70 million in overall maintenance capex for the year. And nothing of that has changed. It's important to us to, again, reinvest in the assets and to be ready to take advantage of all the market opportunities that are to come.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Alejandra Obregon with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Good morning, GCC team. Thank you for taking my question. First, on the strong EBITDA, I guess your unit profitability figures in the quarter are impressive. So I was just wondering what aspects, especially in Mexico, have driven the strong performance, and how do you think of the sustainability of these levels of unit profitability? I guess Once the volumes come back and energy cascades continue to drop, there's a big chance of these perhaps prevailing or even looking better ahead, right?

So that is the first question here.

Hi, Alejandra. This is Enrique. Thanks for your question. Yes, Mexico. Basically, our, I mean, cost efficient is derived from fuels and power at both plants. So obviously, I mean, we are benefiting from the low molecule cost for natural gas that we think is going to stay at very reasonable levels in this year and the coming year according to the futures that we have been seeing. So most of those savings should remain in place for our operations. If volumes, as you will say, if volumes increase a little bit, then we'll have a much better absorption cost, further increase in our EBITDA per ton. So we are, I mean, we are consciously optimistic that the Mexico operations could, I mean, improve in the second half, especially with some projects that we are observing, some of them in the forest area, that could materialize, I mean, by the second half of the year, more toward the fourth quarter.

Gotcha. That's fantastic.

And then if you can elaborate a little bit on the volumes in the U.S., you were mentioning that some of the drop is linked to weather. If you can help us understand and separate how much of that drop is linked to weather and how much of that is potentially a weakness in some of the different end markets in the volumes in the U.S.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a specific answer at this moment as to how much was the impact of weather-related delays, Alejandra. We're still working on that, and we can come back to you with that information. But again, I want to make clear that part of it is decreasing demand for the derived from the economic factors that we mentioned, like, I mean, interest rates still being where they are, expectations in the mortgage segment and so forth. And the other part that is weather-related, of course, I mean, part of it is still, I mean, available for us during the second half of the year, depending, of course, when winter hits in the northern regions. And the other ones, for example, the Sunsea Project, I mean, we expect to also recover that volume, given that that was just a two-month delay in the second quarter. So we'll come back to you with more specifics of how much was weather-related and what would be the impact for the whole year.

Thank you. That was very clear.

Thank you. Our next question is from Carlos Perelonge with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for the call. My question is related to cement price increases. You mentioned for oil well cement a price increase. Could you comment on construction cement for both the U.S. and Mexico? Are there any planned increases in prices in the second half of the year? Thank you.

Carlos, thank you for your question. No, the answer is, I mean, no for construction cement. We don't have it today, anything. And we don't see a price increase in the Verizon for the second half of the year. Of course, I mean, we are working very diligently with customers all the time to continue understanding inflationary pressures. and cost increases, but so far we have decided that we are okay at this level for the second half.

Excellent. Thank you. And one more question on M&A. You talked about during the call about different potential targets that you're looking at. When you're thinking of M&A, Should we be thinking about bolt-on acquisitions that are a couple of hundred million dollars, or are you also potentially considering larger acquisitions that could be higher numbers, just to get a sense of the magnitude of potential M&A?

Yeah. Hi, Carlos. This is Mike. Thanks for the question. So two elements, cement M&A, how focused is targets that are close to our network, which you could consider bolt-ons that we can plug into the existing network, list some immediate synergies and work for that. That's our first priority. Second, in the cement space, we're of course now looking a little broader because U.S. is our key market, so we're starting to look a little broader. In that case, those would be a little bit more starting thinking about a new network that are not immediately connected to the existing network, but that are a start for a new network. And that, to be honest, would include, you know, looking at the whole country. So that's sort of the element on cement. On aggregates, as I explained, we're in the starting phase. Here, it's within our footprint. It's smaller-sized companies, but with a good reserve position that we can then grow and that we can connect with other targets. So we have a couple in the works that we can connect to build a future network. So that's a little bit of a two-way approach, a little bit differentiated between cement and aggregates.

Understood. Thank you, Mike.

Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from Alberto Galerio with UBS.

Please proceed with your question.

Thank you for taking my question.

I had one follow-up of Carlos' question on cement strikes. Historically, when you see volumes dropping, you also see pricing following this momentum. This time around, it's different. I think since 2021, pricing has been more resilient than historically. So my question is, you mentioned that you expect flatish price for Mexico and the U.S., but looking further, do you think the pricing can keep it resilient. And my other question is why you think prices are more resilient than in the past that you have in the industry? Thank you.

Hi, Alberto.

This is Enrique. We're having a little bit of problems to hear you well, but if I understood correctly your question on pricing, I mean, you were looking at price increases in the in the presence of volume decreases, or is it supposed to be maintained, I mean, at the current level compared to, I mean, cycles in the past? If that's your question, I would say that we totally expect, I mean, the price level to maintain at least where it is. We're still having some positive effects of the latest price increases that were, I mean, increase during the second quarter. And of course, we're going to benefit from the oil, oil, cement price increase too. But generally speaking, I mean, we completely expect, I mean, those prices to be maintained even in the presence of lower volumes. I guess there are two important factors in my opinion. One is obviously the industry has been, continues to consolidate. I mean, it's a little bit smaller in terms of participants. And on the other hand, I think that, I mean, we're very conscious about the inflation cost pressure that we have been experiencing and that I share, I mean, the thoughts of some of the economists when they say it's still sticky. And so we are very, very aware of that and are very vigilant to, I mean, not to lose precisely our margins. So we'll continue, I mean, protecting our prices and our market share everywhere.

Okay, thank you very much. The second question we couldn't hear as well, Alberto.

No, it was about this, it was about the resilience of the market of cement at this moment. I think the industry is more resilient than the past in many terms of price. We see sometimes weakening in volumes, but price is always there.

It was about this.

Okay, I think we answered the question. Again, I would maybe add one element to Enrique's comment. We have also invested in what we call commercial work, commercial excellence, and I think our teams are very focused, proactive, working with the customers, communicating how we see the demand coming in, making sure we align Supporting also from a technical service perspective, all these elements overall support our pricing level and the service level that we give to customers. So that's why we're, like Henrique said, confident even in a month where we have a little bit of a slowdown or demand decrease that we're able to keep the proper pricing level.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you, Henrique.

Thank you. Our next question is from Marcelo Furlan with ITAU. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Mike. Hi, Henrique. Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is related to Mexico, specifically with the mining segment. You guys mentioned that the mining segment remains weak throughout the year. So my question is related to if we could expect some improvement in the mining segment for the second half of this year, maybe for 2025. and then supporting some demand I had. So it's my first question. And my second question is related to capital allocation. You guys mentioned that the main part of the company will be allocating capital towards growth and also maintenance of the plants, et cetera. But if you could elaborate a little bit more in terms of capital allocation to shareholders return would be helpful as well. These are my two questions. Thank you, guys.

Marcelo, thank you for the questions. This is Enrique. I'm going to tackle the first one and then pass it on to Mike for the second one. On the mining segment, no, we don't expect an improvement in the second half of the year. As we have been informing in past conferences, the mining sector is going to continue to decline this year based on that, I mean, reserves of several of the mines have been depleted and they're in their final, I mean, mining stage. There are no new projects online except for one that we know of, I mean, coming online, coming on construction at the end of 2025, which, I mean, additional cement demand would not be expected until 2026, more or less, depending on the development of flood mines. That's a very important project that will increase, I mean, demand way above of what we experienced in past years. But we're still in this period of two, three years with the lower volumes in this segment.

Regarding the CapEx, so, you know, or the capital allocation, again, the priorities for, we want to grow the company and, you know, taking our, you know, opportunities in our own hands. That's our project specifically. That's, you know, that's our top priority, executing against that. And as we stated, that's on target, on schedule, and we're deploying that capital there. We also have a handful of other growth projects. You know, however, we're very disciplined in how we invest in those. Some of those are related to our distribution network and terminal network. And some of those investments are related to the overall sustainability strategy, which we really believe will make us more profitable and stronger as a company, including investments in alternative fuels, as we have stated, which, by the way, supports also the positive cost development that we have alternative fuels as a tool to manage the cost side. Secondly, as I mentioned, we have some ambitious targets to lower the clinker factor, so investing in the plants with growth capital for grinding enhancement, for distribution enhancement, to really lower that clinker factor. Also along those lines, we're looking for opportunities on the cementitious material side, so raw materials that can be introduced and included in the blended cements. And those are very specific projects where we're allocating capital. And then finally around the tactics around energy projects. Our solar projects, as we've mentioned, some of them still small today, but we're learning and we're experimenting and we see some real opportunities to grow those and to scale those up. And again, they will make us more stable when it comes to cost and also a large contribution on the sustainability journey. So that's our number one focus. Then secondly, of course, as I mentioned, we're very active in the market to find the right acquisition opportunity, either in cement or in aggregate. We're very optimistic. We have good conversations, clear engagement there, and that's going to be a priority, to be ready to be able to make those acquisitions, and that's a key element of our capital allocation. Regarding the dividends, I think we have been very consistent over the last few years. We have increased the dividends about 15% year over year. That's an important element to return back to the shareholders. And I think we have good alignment within the team, good guidance from the board that that's the goal to continue that. And then the last element I would mention, we have a small but important buyback program to take advantage of if there are opportunities, again, to see how we can allocate capital to that. That's a small element, but important to mention as well. So that's an overall summary how we see the capital allocation.

OK, that's really helpful. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Our next question is from Andres Carboas with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

I have two questions. The first one is from my talk suite, different industry players. It seems like as of May, the industry dynamics were relatively okay, so it seems that that you saw some disruptions. I was interested in understanding if you could share some early color about how july is going so far and how confident are you about the visibility you have for the second half of the year and the second point is you have been mentioning how low gas prices are i was wondering if you have the ability to hedge these costs towards 2025. thank you

Yeah, as we mentioned, I mean, we began seeing some decreasing volumes in May. Again, part of it is weather-related. June was a more drastic drop. I would say July is better in terms of our expectations. I mean, it's improving compared to what we saw in June. So for the rest of the year, I mean, we think that, as I said in the guidance, we may end up end up flat in comparison to last year. So that's what we're seeing in terms of volumes. In terms of gas, I mean, definitely, I mean, we're always looking at opportunities, I mean, to hedge our position. And obviously, we do it naturally, of course, with our own coal and reserves in mind. But on the market directly, yes, our energy team is always looking at opportunities to, I mean, fix I mean, part of the consumption of gas at a certain price that we believe is going to be advantageous based on what we see in the futures demand curve. So, yes, we are very active and very dynamic in doing that all the time.

Thank you, guys. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session.

I'd like to turn the floor back to Ms. Ogushi.

Thank you, everyone. We appreciate taking time today to join us and for your interest in DCC.

We look forward to speaking with all of you soon. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.