Good morning. On behalf of Telecom Argentina, I would like to thank everybody for participating in this conference call. The participants of today's conference call are Roberto Nobile, Chief Executive Officer, Gabriel Blasi, Chief Financial Officer, Fernando Balmaceda, Director of Investor Relations, and myself, Lucas Borges, also part of the investor relations team. The purpose of this call is to share with you the results of the six-month period and second quarter of fiscal year 2021, ending on June 30, 2021. If you have not received our press release or presentation, you can call our investor relations office to request the documents or download them from the investor relations section of our website located at www.telecom.com.ar. This conference call and presentation is being broadcasted and can also be replayed through our investor website at institutional.telecom.com.ar/inversores. I would like to go over some safe harbor information and other details of the call. We would like to clarify that during the conference call and Q&A session, we could mention certain forward-looking statements about Telecom's future performance, plans, strategies, and objectives. Such statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause Telecom's actual results and operations to differ materially. Such uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the effects of ongoing industry and economic regulations, possible changes in the demand for Telecom's products and services, the effects of potential changes in general market and/or economic conditions in legislation, and the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 on the global economy, and specifically on the economies of the countries in which we operate, as well as on our operations and financial performance. Our press release, dated August 6th, 2021, a copy of which was included in a Form 6-K and sent to the SEC, described certain factors that may affect any forward-looking statements that could be mentioned during this call. The company has reflected the effects of the inflation adjustment adopted by Resolution 777/18 of the Comisión Nacional de Valores, which establishes that the re-expression will be applied to the annual financial statements for intermediate and special periods ending as of, and including December 31st, 2018. Accordingly, the reported figures corresponding to the first half of 2020 include the effects of the adoption of inflationary accounting in accordance with IAS 29. In this presentation, we will also include figures in historical values which are easier to understand. Our press release is complemented by our earnings presentation. The audience should read the disclaimer contained in slide one and two of the presentation. The agenda for today's conference call includes our business and financial highlights, and we will end the call with a Q&A session. Now, let me pass the call to Ariel, our CFO, who will start with the presentation. Thank you, Lucas. Good morning, and welcome to everyone. Moving to slide three, we summarize our main highlights as of the first half of 2021. The full repayment of our 2021 144A bond in June, our firm intention to increase our CapEx program for this year, our commitment to ESG demonstrated by our first integrated report, our consistent reduction on operating expenses, our ability to increase prices since January 2021. Up today, our increase in prices has been of 30% when the local inflation is running at a rate of 3.5% per month. Our strong reduction in bad debt and normalization of our collection periods, our steady performance both in Paraguay and Uruguay, our strategy to develop new businesses like our new fintech. The confirmation that we have been working on the right path regarding the refinancing of our financial debt. It is important to mention that the company was served with notice of the resolution dated in June 18, 2021, rendered by the Chamber 2 of the Federal Court of Appeals of Administrative Litigation Matters in the proceedings Telecom Argentina Sociedad Anónima A-EM ENACOM, and others, reference per preliminary injunction, autonomous docket number 12,08081-2020, whereby the court decided by majority to reject the extraordinary appeals filed by the national state and the ENACOM against the decision of the court that accepted the company's appeals, revoked the first instant court's decision, and granting the preliminary injunction requested by Telecom Argentina, ordering the suspension of the effects of Section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Decree 690-20 and of ENACOM resolutions number 1,466/2020, 1,467-2020, and 204-21, and their non-applicability to the company. Moving to slide four, shows the company figures for the first half of 2021. During the first six months of the year, Telecom's revenue totaled ARS 1,881 million. Revenues measured in constant pesos decreased 8% year-to-year. EBITDA totaled ARS 640 million. Our EBITDA margin was 34%. Telecom's mobile subscribers in Argentina amounting to 19.3 million, increasing in more than 450,000 total clients when compared to the first half of 2020. Broadband and pay TV clients have also experienced an increase, totaling 4.2 million and 3.5 million when comparing first half of 2021 with first half of 2020. Fixed voice subscribers, without considering IP telephone lines, amounting to 2.6 million during the first half of 2021. Our commercial strategy has allowed us to have 2 million convergent unique customers, with 47% of our broadband customers having a mobile bundle. Moving to slide 5, shows our price adjustment during June 2021. After having our prices constant for most part of 2020, from March to December, we decided to increase prices in 20% during the first quarter of 2021. In June, we increased our prices again in 10%. We might continue with said price increases if the local inflation continues at current levels, and we need to take pace of that inflation. In mobile, prices have increased 10% on average. In broadband, the prices of the services with speeds up to equal to 25 MB/s mainly Fibertel Lite, have increased in 15%. Price of services with speeds higher than 25 MB/s increased by 10%. All prices of pay TV services, including the premium services such as HBO and Fox, as well as the football pack, have increased by 10%. Prices of fixed boxes basic services were increased by 10% on average. Moving to slide six, shows the evolution of our products. On the mobile segment, postpaid subscribers have increased 5.6%, while prepaid subs have increased 0.2%. Our postpaid and prepaid shares are 42% and 58%. Fibertel, our customer base increased 3.1% year-over-year, mainly growing in the HFC and FTTH segments. In pay TV, accesses have grown 1.3% year-over-year, mostly leveraged on our Flow platform. In fixed voice, the reduction of accesses has continued, mainly traditional fixed copper lines. On the other hand, our Fibertel IP accesses have increased by more than 350,000 lines. In slide seven, we show the evolution of our service revenues. Service revenue totaled ARS 167 billion, decreasing 10.8% in real terms versus first half of 2020, in a period where the annual inflation was 50.2%. Our revenue breakdown as of June 2021 is similar to our previous quarters, with a slight increase in equipment sales. The breakdown is as follows: mobile revenues 38%, broadband revenues 21%, pay TV revenues 20%, fixed telephone and data revenues 14%, equipment sales revenues 7%. Our main trends in mobile and broadband are explained on slide eight. We have been able to keep constant of our customer base and clients have been growing in the usage of our products. Postpaid mobile and broadband are the two main drivers of our performance. As of June 2021, postpaid subscribers amounted to 42% of our total customer base. The chart in the upper left shows the competitive landscape wireless per month. Personal, it's in blue color, positive numbers show incoming clients, and negative numbers show clients lost against the competition. Mobile internet usage has continued increasing, reaching an average of more than 4.2 GB per user per month in 2021. In addition, there has been an important increase in broadband speeds. 63% of our total subs have speeds between 50 and 1,000 MB/s, comparing with 45% during the first half of 2020. Slide nine is a summary of our operations in Paraguay. Núcleo generated $103 million and $48 million in revenues in U.S. dollar terms and EBITDA, respectively, during the first half of 2021. Revenue breakdown was as follows: browsing services 43%, voice 16%, data 6%, broadband 14%, TV services 8%, and other services approximately 13%. As of June 30, 2021, mobile customers total 2.2 million. Clients of Billetera Personal, a mobile financial service that our subsidiary provides, reached more than 250,000. Fixed internet services subscribers amounted to 188,000 in the pay TV segment. Flow customers total 28,000, and in Personal HD, 60,000. I will now pass the call to Fernando Balmaceda, who will go over our financial performance. Thanks so much, Gabriel. Slide 10 shows that during the first half of 2021, consolidated revenues on nominal terms grew by 32%, reaching ARS 164.8 billion, pesos again, no? When analyzing said figure adjusted by inflation, revenues amounted to ARS 108 billion, showing an increase of 9% in real terms. Service revenues showed a 29% nominal increase in a context where prices were frozen from March to December of 2020. EBITDA increased by 26% year-over-year in nominal terms, thus generating an EBITDA margin of 35.3%. EBITDA margin in real terms was 34%. The company performed well in terms of cost controls. Operating costs before D&A decreased by 5% in real terms versus the first half of 2020. As mentioned, the company has achieved an aggressive cost reduction strategy. Slide 11 shows the company's EBITDA and the impact of the different components of revenues and costs. Operating costs were 5% lower in real terms. The company performed an efficient cost management process, as almost all our cost lines experienced a decrease in real terms, with exception of access costs, mainly due to increase in prices and higher sales. It is important to mention that our bad debt expenses decreased by 61.3% versus our first half 2020, as a direct consequence of the several actions that management has been taking place during 2020 and 2021. Our percentage of bad debt related to total sales is very low, 1.7%, and our collections are performing normally. Let's move to slide 12, where we can see that the company's operating income total almost ARS 5.3 billion, while EBIT has decreased 76% in real terms. The EBIT decrease is in constant measure in units, is explained by the increase in D&A and disposal and impairment of fixed assets, which increased almost 12% in real terms year-over-year. Mainly due to D&A increase, operating margins reached 3% of consolidated revenues, while in historical figures, the same margin was 21%. In the first semester of 2021, the company had a net loss of ARS 1.672 billion, mainly due to tax expenses of ARS 25 billion, which was partially offset by the company's operating profit and positive net financial results. Slide 13 shows a summary of the company's CapEx during the first half of the year, which amounted to almost ARS 33 billion, or an equivalent of $344 million at the official tax rate. This amount is 50% higher when compared with the same last year's period. Our consolidated amount of CapEx amount to 18% of our total revenues, which is a very important ratio as per the global industry standards. Technical CapEx was mainly composed of installation and Customer premises equipment or CPE. The balance was allocated to network and technology and to our international operations, both in Paraguay and Uruguay. During the first half of 2021, 81 new mobile sites were deployed and more than 1,000 existing sites were upgraded. The capacity of our HFC access network continues increasing, mainly through segmentation and division of areas. More than 4,000 blocks were provided with FTTH fixed access technology. Slide 14 describes our cash flow generation during the first half of 2021 when compared with the same period of 2020. During the first half of 2021, the operating free cash flow amounted to approximately ARS 256 million, equivalent ARS 133 million less than in the first half of 2020. This variation is mainly explained by the increase in EBITDA and the increase in CapEx in constant currency. Slide 15 shows our key figures for the last 12 months as of the second quarter of 2021 in constant measuring unit. The company revenues amounted to almost ARS 361 billion, while the EBITDA amounted to more than ARS 118 billion. Last 12 months, EBITDA margin was 32.8%. Our gross debt amounted to ARS 240 billion as of June 30, 2021, decreasing 4.2% from December 2020. The company has been able to generate an important amount of cash and equivalents, having a net debt of ARS 189 billion. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio is at 1.6x. Slide 16 shows the breakdown of our financial debt. As mentioned during the last quarters, a debt refinancing process has been extremely successful. During the year 2020, we refinanced ARS 777 million of our financial debt and canceled ARS 200 million of the same debt. Total outstanding debt as of June 2021 amount to almost ARS 2.5 billion. On the 15th of June 2021, we repaid the outstanding amount of our 2021 Class A notes. Total consideration was ARS 106.6 million, ARS 103.2 million in principal, and ARS 3.4 million in interest payments. For the rest of 2021, our debt maturities are completely manageable and very low. For 2022 and 2023, our debt maturities remain within the range of ARS 500 million and then reduce considerably until the maturity of our 2026 notes. We are already talking with banks and multilaterals on the refinancing of our 2022 and 2023 debt maturities. Now, I will pass the presentation to Lucas Borges, who will give the final remarks. With this, now we are more than pleased to answer any questions you may have. However, before we start, we would like to remind you how you can address your questions during the Q&A session, which we will open immediately. Please send a message to IR Telecom Argentina through the Q&A menu, identifying yourself and stating that you have a question. Or alternatively, use the Hand button to let us know that you want to formulate a question. We will let you know when it's your turn to speak, and we will unmute you so you can proceed with your question. Thank you. Okay, we have the first question from Marcelo Santos from JP Morgan. You can now speak. You are unmuted. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Good afternoon to you, actually. The first question is on the CapEx outlook, if it remains at ARS 600 million for this year or if anything has changed on that front. The second question is if you think that in the next couple of quarters, you have the capacity to offset inflation. We see that you're increasing prices, but inflation is also coming very high. What is the outlook like for the third, fourth quarter, maybe next year? Should we expect Telecom to be able to offset in ARPU the inflation? That's the two questions. Thank you. Okay, Marcelo Santos. Thank you for your questions. Well, regarding the CapEx, as a result of the good cash generation that the company had in pesos during the first half of the year, we took the decisions to increase the CapEx that primarily we established for the year. Meaning that on a consolidated base, our total CapEx, including our CapEx of our subsidiaries, would be over $700 million, more in the $770 million as total. Of course, this figure is directly related to how the devaluation pace evolves in Argentina and how we translate the pesos to final dollars. As a final question, there is no reduction of CapEx for this year. On the contrary, we are going to invest near 20% more than what we stated at the beginning of the year. Regarding the second part of the question about the inflation pace, it is important to address that although we can think that during this year, our inflation adjustment of prices has been able to cope with inflation in terms of the speed of the trend, meaning of the slope of the curves. There is a piece of inflation that was all the effect of last year freeze that we are not able to recover yet. When you look at our total results, the company in terms of inflation is behind if you take the consideration of our total prices since the merge up to now, our total price structure regarding the inflation pace has a gap of almost 30% on an accumulated base. Of course, in the long run, all these tend to normalize, but that's the situation as present. Just to add to Gabriel's. This is Roberto. Hello to everyone. In addition to what Gabriel said, first of all, regarding the CapEx, we started the year with a forecast of ARS 500 million for the total year. Remember, we try to forecast the CapEx in different stages. As long as the numbers were good, we granted another ARS 100 million. Since the numbers were still good and the cash generation was good enough, and the capacity that we had to do was there, we decided to move forward and move to almost ARS 770 million by the end of the year, including our subsidiaries. This is the way we have been managing our CapEx investments. We are obviously trying to accelerate as much as we can as long as the cash flows are good enough. On the price increases, we have already communicated to our customers and to ENACOM a 10% price increase starting from September 1. That is in addition to the 30% that we have already adjusted up to June. We will see if that's enough for the year or not, but that will depend on the pace of the inflation rate coming for the next months. What we are seeing is a decrease in the monthly inflation rate. With this 10% in September, we should probably reach the end of the year as it is. Keeping track of inflation of 2021 inflation. We're still behind with this 7 or 8 months period of 2020 that we were not able to increase prices by inflation. Okay, perfect. Very much, very comprehensive answers. Thank you. Okay, we have a new question from Nicolas Giannone, from Balanz Capital. You can now speak. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Hope you're doing well, and thanks for taking my question. Actually, it's more of an update on the legal front. I think the last time I read about the case, the government was about to draw upon a per saltum, and in the press release, you said that it has not been treated yet. I just wanted to know if that refers to this per saltum and if effectively this would be the last stage of the case, right? If once the court rules over this per saltum, this would be over. Thanks. Thank you, Nicolas. As long as we know, the per saltum is not the right procedure for the government to appeal. They have appealed to the court, and the court has said no. It has been rejected. As long as we move forward, there's no new procedure from the government on our case. Remember that Telecom has been granted legal coverage. The whole industry has been granted also legal coverage against the Decree 690, and we have also other cable operators in Misiones, two cable operators in Córdoba, another cable operator in San Luis that were granted the same coverage, and also Telecentro and DIRECTV has been granted in court the legal coverage. This is more like an industry thing, and we feel strong that this situation will remain. Great. That was really clear. Just one more question on the financing side. I think Fernando commented that you were already in talks with multilateral organisms for the maturities of next year. I don't know exactly the terms or the checklist of these organisms to grant new credit lines, considering that you are upping your CapEx for this year and perhaps next year as well, do you think you could be able to be granted new credit lines and new just refinancing considering the current macro situation and the macro effect situation, right? Yes. Thank you for the question. Well, regarding the ability of the company to get additional financing lines, at present, we are negotiating with Sinosure, the credit agent of the Chinese government. The 2nd tranche, remember that last year, we granted a loan of $100 million. Now we are granting a second stage of that loan just in case we need that. It's important because as the grades of the multilateral agencies, that type of financing has somehow assured effect channel under Banco Central regulations. We have also granted additional financing relating to Finnvera and other creditors from Exim Bank, from Canada, and even from the U.S. All those are financing that the company is at present discussing with different type of creditors. On the pure financial side, we have for next year and the following one, we just only have $140 million of maturity, which is not related to the multilateral agency. Meaning that $140 million maturing next year on the term loan is the remain of the original $1 billion bridge that we received during the beginning of the consolidation of the two companies. That transaction is the only transaction that we may think has not, under the present regulatory environment, the obligation of Banco Central to provide the dollars directly as stature from a Banco Central regulation they have when it is a multilateral agency finance. Meaning that IDB, IFC, Sinosure, and that type of credits, all that have a privilege under Banco Central international rules to be provided the dollars for payment. Although we are almost covered in that event because ARS 140 million is something that we can easily get in the local financing market and to get the dollar from Banco Central, we are already having conversations in different type of instruments, and we must say that the outlook is very positive. There are certain developments in the market in Latin America, like the green bonds, the other type of bonds related to multilateral agencies that pose opportunities where Telecom might find additional space. Also, it is important to address that the company has been able, in the middle of last year and the quarantine, to refinance ARS 800 million. We have just fully repaid the $100 million remaining of the $500 million of the 2021 note. All that consideration regarding the credit of the company is well received among our investors. We have just started conversations with our group of creditors with very positive outlook, where I must say that all of them are willing to support the company in a way of easing our financial maturities. I would say, which, by the way, is not absolutely necessary. This is just a precaution that we want to take in terms of not waiting to the end, because as I mentioned, we have the ability to go directly to the original maturities and as the biggest part of all this obligation, our preferred foreign exchange channel, we can replace the financing locally, which is, by the way, what we have been doing with the last maturity. I think that gives us a very good support and gives you a good color in terms of the future developments of our financing needs. Thanks. That was very detailed. I have no further questions. Thanks a lot. Please let us know if you have any further questions. Okay, we have now a new question from Octin Faralde. You are now unmuted. Thanks so much for the call. Just one quick question, and that is related to the margins dynamics of the second quarter that decreased a lot against the first quarter, mainly it's impacted by labor cost. I was wondering, what are you expecting in terms of the EBITDA margins for the rest of the year? Which was the agreement with the unions in terms of salaries increases? Okay. Yes, as you have observed, if you can mute, we are receiving some noise on the line. As you have observed, of course, on the second quarter, the biggest impact that we had was the adjustment of salaries according to the bargaining process with the unions. That's the main reason of the increase. Having said that, in general terms, our EBITDA margin is quite strong considering the general circumstance. As you can probably see, with the exception of the cost that I already mentioned, the rest of the costs of the company are willing to be managed well behind inflation base. The reason to that has two different reasons, or three. The first one is the level of activity that we have been, of course, when you compare to last year, in the year-to-year comparison, the second quarter, we were in the worst moment of the pandemic and really, that was the lowest level of activity in the country as a whole. That is reflected in the evolution year-to-year on the second quarter. The second aspect which is relevant for this comparison is related to the fact that we tend to increase our activity as the general situation of the quarantine and pandemic consequences tend to get milder. As that gets better, it's easier to increase our activity. Also, as we have mentioned, we are increasing our level of activity in general terms. Also, that has implications. Having said that, I must also say that we are receiving the benefits of the big investment that the company has been doing the last two years, especially on the IT front and on the different digital platforms that we are implementing. With all that, we have certain synergies that are being included in the figures that we have been discussing. As for instance, when you look at the evolution compared to the inflation of our administration cost, they have been constantly lower of inflation and getting a very strong reduction in real terms. That is also related because of the application of all these new platforms that simplify our processes. Putting all this together, I will say probably, the margin that we are having today, which by the way, has the impact of the inflation adjustment included in it. This is something that you must take into consideration because certain figures are adjusting automatically, and that is part of the accounting, I will say, particularities that we have to deal with. I will say that the general margin of the company will keep this pace. Not thinking of we are having an increase by the end of the year. We have an election year. General expenditure is going to increase. We have accelerated our CapEx and increases and all that. As I mentioned, put pressure on those margins. We think that we are going to cope to be successful in terms of keeping the margin at a good pace from now to the end of the year. No, I was. Just to add that salaries are going to receive an impact or increase of 20% by the rest of the year. Just to complete the picture. That probably is the most relevant effect that you will see. It represents a third of the total cost. Thank you very much for participating in our quarterly conference call. Please do not hesitate in contacting our investor relations department for any further inquiries you may have. Good morning to all, and have a nice day.
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