Good morning everyone, welcome to Wilson Sons Earnings Conference Call for the first quarter of 2023. Today with us we have Mr. Fernando Salek, the company's CEO, Fabrícia Souza, the CFO, and Arnaldo Calbucci, COO. The conference is being recorded, we will have simultaneous translation for those who wish to listen to the English version. During the company's presentation, all participants will be connected in listen-only mode. During the conference, participants will be able to smile their questions via webcast. At the end, we will begin a Q&A session with the company's executives. The financial results are expressed in Brazilian BRLs and presented in accordance with international financial reporting standards, IFRS, unless otherwise stated. Before moving on, I'd like to mention that Page 2 of the presentation contains the usual disclaimers on forward-looking statements for your reference. I'd like to turn the floor to Fabrícia Souza. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, welcome to our earnings call. Let's begin on slide number four, if you will, by talking about safety and sustainability, two of the key topics for our company. In the first quarter of 2023, we filed a Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate of 0.30 incidents per million hours worked, outperforming the world-class benchmark in a 33% reduction when compared to the rate registered in 2022. This performance shows our relentless commitment to safety of our employees. In April, we delivered WS Musashi, the third in a series of six tugboats with over 90 tons of bollard pull, joining our fleet by 2024. This vessel is already operating at the Açu port. In May, we published our 2022 sustainability report, taking yet another step towards increasingly transparent and consistent disclosure of the company's environmental, social, and governance performance. By the end of this month, the Salvador Container Terminal will receive 12 fully electric terminal tractors as part of the implementation of the first electrification project of this nature in Latin America, which will contribute significantly to reduce our carbon emissions. Together with the waterway cargo transportation in Rio Grande, all these actions combined contribute to the development and continuous improvement of our ESG practices and also operating excellence, thus strengthening one of our strategic pillars. We can now move on to slide number six, if you will. Net revenue increased by 8% in Q1, reaching BRL 570 million, mainly driven by a higher volume and a better revenue mix in towage. In addition to that, it also reflects a higher operating activity in the offshore support bases, also higher revenues from cargo handling and ancillary services at the container terminals, and an increased conversion and dry docking for third parties at the shipyard, and also higher shipping agency revenues. EBITDA was in line with Q1 of last year at BRL 240 million, mainly driven by the strong FX gains in the equity result for the comparative period. Net profit came in at BRL 85 million, a drop against the number filed in the previous period due to a strong FX gain at BRL 63 million in Q1 of last year when compared to a benefit of BRL 9 million in the first three months of this year. The main drivers in Q1 were the positive exchange rate variation of BRL 7 million on deferred taxes and the exchange gain of BRL 3 million on Brazilian real denominated monetary items coming from the offshore support vessel joint venture. If we exclude those effects, profit would have decreased by 5%. Moving on to Slide 7. On this slide, we highlight the financial performance of our main business divisions. Container terminal revenues rose by 5% in Q1, reaching BRL 191 million, benefiting from an increased operating activity and higher ancillary service revenues. EBITDA decreased slightly to BRL 90 million due to higher costs such as container handling and payroll taxes. Volumes increased 7%, driven by higher empty container, inland navigation, export, and cabotage flows. During the quarter, container terminal schedule reliability improved considerably as a result of lower shift call cancellations, continuing a recovery trend towards pre-pandemic levels in the short run. Towage revenues rose 9% in the quarter to BRL 276 million, benefiting from higher volumes as well as an increase in average revenue per maneuver and special operations. The better revenue mix reflects an increase in maneuvers of ships carrying grain and oil, which generally have higher tonnage. EBITDA increased by 17%, reaching BRL 127 million, driven mainly by higher revenues and margin increase. As for joint ventures, the non-consolidated ones, they accounted mainly for the offshore support vessel operation, saw a significant recovery in demand. Revenues rose 62% in the quarter, supported mainly by the 25% increase in operating days and 30% in the fleet average daily rate. Net profit, which is accounted for in the company's results via equity pickup system, was BRL 12 million. Moving now to slide number nine, if you will. On this slide, we present some of our liquidity and leverage ratios, which remain solid, reflecting a robust balance sheet and resilient businesses. Bank debt decreased slightly when compared to December 31, 2021 due to the amortization in the period, as well as to a 3% depreciation of the U.S. dollar when compared to the BRL, reducing the U.S. dollar-denominated debt when reported in BRL. In terms of cash flow, we highlight the BRL 174 million coming from operating activities. Also, the BRL 85 million in CapEx, mainly for tugboat construction and the acquisition of new equipment for the Salvador container terminal, as well as the BRL 48 million in bank debt amortization. We ended Q1 with BRL 278 million in cash and cash equivalents. The bank leverage ratio remained stable at 1.7x EBITDA for the last twelve months. At the end of the quarter, 81% of our bank debt was long-term, and 67% was financed by the Merchant Marine Fund with fixed interest rates. Moving now to slide number 11, please. Here we have the company's operating performance year-to-date, April. In the first four months of the year, our container terminal and towage provisions benefited from trade flow growth. At the terminals, aggregated volumes increased by 8% in the period, driven mainly by higher empty container exports and inland navigation flows. In Rio Grande, volumes were 11% above of that filed in the same period last year, while Salvador saw a growth of 4%. In towage, harbor maneuvers increased 1% in the period, and the average size of ships rose 2%, mainly due to the strong flow of commodities and oil transshipments. In the offshore energy segment, the demand for our services improved considerably. Operating days in the offshore support vessel joint venture increased by 21%, while vessel turnarounds at the support bases rose by 69% in the same period. Moving on to slide number 12, if you will. On this slide, we present some factors driving the Rio Grande container terminal performance in 2023. 2022, volumes were negatively affected by the turmoil created by the pandemic and the disruption in global supply chains. The rapid increase in freight rates and the lack of capacity made carriers to act ships and containers to their most profitable destinations, leading to cancellations of calls and blank sailings to recover service schedules. Rio Grande's imbalance between export and import flows makes the port highly dependent on the repositioning of empty containers to meet the higher export demand. A significant part of the terminal volume is comprised of agricultural products, which are sensitive to freight prices. This led some shippers to seek logistical alternatives to transport their goods, such as break bulk ships or road transportations over cabotage, or even shift to the domestic market. The shortage of empty containers and the volume reduction due to higher freight rates made Rio Grande a frequent cancellation option for carriers who were seeking to recover voyage schedules. Added to this, the cancellations reduced confidence in the Rio Grande logistics corridor, leading some shippers to momentarily seek other ports or less efficient logistics alternatives. All of that in order to guarantee shipments. As a result of these market dynamics, the terminal's commodity volumes decreased by 27%, and the availability of empty containers dropped by 15% in 2022 when compared to 2019. As pandemic-driven issues eased, Brazilian ports improved berth window compliance and empty container volumes increased consequently. This led to a drop in ship call cancellation, and Rio Grande recovered market confidence in its logistics solution. Moreover, freight rates have resumed pre-pandemic levels, making container transport once again viable for certain commodities. The result can be seen in the operating performance recorded in the first four months of 2023. There is still room for improvement. Both commodity volumes and empty container availability have shown strong recovery, having already achieved levels which are close to those seen before the pandemic. With this, I end my presentation, and I'd like to invite you all to the Q&A session. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, please press star one. To remove your question from the queue, press star two. Our first question comes from André Ferreira from Bradesco BBI. Please, sir, you may carry on. Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have two number one, Rio Grande volume of transshipment last year and now happening the same thing this quarter. In your opinion, can we say that this is a trend in terms of transshipment volume, or are there other one-off factors driving that trend? The second question, how it is to the expansion of the tugboat markets to beyond Brazil? André, thank you for the questions. I'll answer the second question. I'll start by the second question, then I'll give the floor to Arnaldo for him to address question about the Rio Grande transshipment situation. As for a potential intention or a strategic intention of expanding our tugboat operation to other countries, what I can tell you now is that we are constantly looking at those opportunities. We are well aware that the growth driver for this segment in Brazil, for Wilson Sons, as we are market leaders, we are somewhat limited because of that. Therefore, there is room, there is a possibility for us to look beyond Brazil to other markets in Latin America to assess that market. What I can tell you right now is that we are constantly looking at those possibilities, and we are paying close attention to possibilities and trying to capture good opportunities on that front. Over to Arnaldo, who'll be talking about Rio Grande. Thank you for your question, André. Rio Grande transshipment has improved. That's a fact. We believe that this trend will remain as we have larger ships. Not only transshipment, we have also improved considerably in terms of volumes in Rio Grande as we normalize worldwide logistics. A relevant reduction in the number of emissions and calls and schedules in Rio Grande and Salvador. To give you an idea, we had only one call cancellation in Rio Grande in April, only one. The trend towards improvement is clear. Of course, a lot of repositioning still to happen on the part of the carriers as they need to allocate space. That's very positive. That allows us to have loads in Rio Grande and in Salvador, allows us to export that, provided we have empty containers, which was a difficult thing to have last year, as you know. Okay. Thank you. If I can ask a follow-up at container terminals, if you could comment on the container movements for May. Container figures for the month of May. For May, André, we cannot as yet announce or publicize data now to the market right now. We cannot do that. Okay, thank you. We have a question. I'll read the question from the webcast in writing. The question is, the volumes in terminals grew by 8% in Q1 2023. Does the company believe that this trend will continue for the rest of the year? I'll turn the floor back to Arnaldo for that question. We do believe that there will be an improvement in terms of volumes, in terms of volume growth at terminals. Of course, this also depends on the growth of the country as a whole. The trend is one of improvement in our terminals as we see a normalization and schedules. This will allow our clients to import and export, using the more natural, more organic way, which is the closer, as close as possible to their manufacturing plants. The same goes for cabotage. If I could add to Arnaldo's point, there's also an interesting point when we look at operating data for April. We have a healthier mix, right? We're talking about 8% of growth, as you mentioned, in April. We also have grown in exports and imports at fairly aggressive rates, more aggressive than 8%. Exports to Rio Grande grew by 15% and imports 33%. Just to be sure, which of course shows a more interesting mix in this case. It's important to say also that the end of the bottlenecks, we see a trend for us to do away with the bottlenecks. Call cancellations, repositioning of empty containers, all of that is going back to normal. We have one more question. I'll read it from the webcast. In 2022, about one-third of the dividends, annual dividends, were anticipated to December. Does the company intend to do the same in 2023 and moving forward? I'll give the floor to Fabrícia Souza, our CFO. That was a measure we took in 2022. It is part of a set of measures, in terms of best practices we have been adopting in terms of IR, aiming at improving liquidity, at expanding our shareholder base, and that is a practice we intend to maintain. The answer is yes. Always of course, with some kind of anticipation of dividends at the end of the year when we have a good idea of what the results will be. Our next question comes from Fernanda Recchia from BTG Pactual. Go ahead. Hello, good morning. I have two questions. First-Pricing scenario that we going forward, if you could explore that issue from the point of view of the containers operation and tugboat operations pricing. We see a competitor repricing, their services. It's a different dynamic, I know, but if you could comment on how you see for those two terminals you operate for containers and tugboats. Number two, for the offshore business, we saw a very strong result for Q1, which of course reflects the industry scenario, but how do you see that also going forward for the rest of the year? Can we expect good results for the next quarters as well as good as the ones we saw now in Q1? Thank you, Fernanda, for your question. I will give the floor over to Arnaldo. He'll address the question on pricing. Hi, Fernanda. As for pricing, I'll be talking about tugboats first. Throughout the past years, we were able to increase our price in U.S. dollars per tugboat, per maneuver. We are at a level we consider to be very healthy. There was a trend of stabilization. That's how we see it, right? A trend towards stabilization. We will try to increase prices, but it's more in terms of fine-tuning around a stable level. As for containers, our main objective is to bring back shipments from Rio Grande, which ended up being shifted to other states because of logistics problems that we identified the past years, much more so than increasing prices. Of course, we will be able to recover inflation losses and have real gains, but still, nothing to the tune of the comment that you mentioned, okay? As for the second question about the offshore segment, Arnaldo would like to touch upon that. The offshore segment is recovering strongly. Demand is quite strong. We've identified an improvement in the levels of the price ceilings of the daily rates through the vessels being contracted now. We've been very successful in the past, in the last bids. We see the next months and the rest of the year in a very positive way, including 2024, very bullish. I would add that the tendency to contract vessels, the benefit we've seen in this new trend, we've seen main key component is the significant drop in the level of uncertainty in terms of results, in terms of cash flow for that business division. Hopefully, at the end of the year, we will have most of our vessels under contract. Okay. Thank you. It's stood by as we poll for questions. This concludes the Q&A session. I'd like to invite Mr. Fernando Salek to proceed with his final remarks. Please, Mr. Salek, you may carry on. Thank you very much. We'd like to say that overall Q1 performance is a solid base for improved full-year results in 2023. While the near-term outlook remains somewhat uncertain, we remain positive about the mid- to the long-term fundamentals of the industry and also positive on the ability of the company Wilson Sons to deliver consistent returns. We continue to pursue a world-class performance level with our infrastructure, maintaining the safety of our operations, and always seeking opportunities to leverage our market position, thus reflecting the resilience of our business model and the diversity of our services. We will continue to challenge and transform maritime transportation for the benefit of all our stakeholders towards an increasingly sustainable future. Thank you all for joining our conference, I hope you all stay well and safe. Have a nice day, everyone. See you next time. Wilson Sons audio conference is now over. Thank you all for participating, have a nice day, everyone.
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