Aguas Andinas S.A. (AGUASA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this webinar on the results for 2025 for Aguas Andinas. Thank you very much for joining us. And we're going to review very quickly the status of 2025 for the company, during which we have consolidated everything that has been gained from the operational, financial and team from a long time now. Today, I'm pleased to show you the leaders in this conversation. Today, first of all, we will be with Miquel Sans, the CFO of the company, who will share the general overview of Aguas Andinas for 2025 and Christian Torres, the Manager of control management and accounting, who will delve into the financial part of this fiscal year. At the closure, Cristian Schwerter, the Director of Planning, Engineering and Construction will shed light on the CapEx plan for the main investments based on the pricing process that were established and the next steps to take. [Operator Instructions]. And now I will give the floor to Miquel Sans.

Thank you, Dan, good morning. Good morning, everyone. And thank you very much for being with us once again in the presentation of the financial results for the closure of 2025. As it is custom already and before [Christian] goes into the details of the closure, we will start with some road map. And first of all, we have 2025 where we had less rainfall compared to the present -- the previous years, and this required more perspective for the medium term. And this led us to do transfers of water with the view of the short and mid terms. In the last term within the quarter, we didn't have the turbulent events. But at the beginning of 2026, we have one of these events and this didn't have major events or impacts for the customers because we have an infrastructure and particularly the mega reservoirs in [indiscernible]. Concerning the other rates and the different increases that were previewed for the schedule of the implementation of the basic rates, we have also the supplementary scheme that was applied and that is recognized mid-October. In February this year, we have the approval from the regulator to recognize also the rate that is associated to the projects in La Farfana, this was concluded in December 2025 and will be recognized as of January 27 this year. Concerning the other projects based on the [indiscernible] Mr. Schwerter will show the details of this in the second part of the presentation. We can say that the first wells were drilled, and we are moving ahead in order to start with the work associated to this use. Now we have other acknowledgments in the last quarter of the year, we had [indiscernible]. First of all, we were recognized in climate change perspective and climate change. And we also -- we are in the 5% worldwide. And these acknowledgments are very important for us because they are the result of the fruits of many collaborations of the company for many years now. Finally, and before going into the details of the closure, I would like to say that the Board meeting agreed to approve the members and the distribution of 75% of the dividends. And this is added to the dividend, the provisional dividend that was allocated in December last year. Concerning now the ratings, the risk rating, Fitch changed the perspective of stable -- and this is in accordance with the ratings that we have at the local level and international level that we received last year. And now we will give the floor to Christian Torres, and he will give more details concerning the preceding fiscal year.

Good morning, everyone. And it's a pleasure to be with you again in this presentation of the financial results. The results at the end of 2025 consolidates already the positive pathway that we have followed on a quarterly basis in terms of the operational results and also at the level of the financial indicators for [indiscernible]. I would like to comment the evolution of the income of the company, which were increased by 7.5% concerning the preceding year. There are 2 major effects, I have explained this, first of all, the effects of the rates, as Miquel said before, we had the application -- of the fluid application of all the results that were obtained on the eighth pricing period for the water company [indiscernible] with the law decrease approved and already implemented and added to the indexation of the poly normal indexation that we had during the preceding year explained or stand for this accrual in the income, we should also include another increase in the consumption rate, the water amount that was provided of 2% increase that represented CLP 1 million. And we should also that the company has developed also some important efforts last year in order to implement the management and the efficiency measurement perspective. First of all, we have the change of the meters and the replacement of the meters and the initiative that is related to the green areas management in the city so that we can recover this water measurement that was not before recorded. So we have this increase of 7.5%. Then if we go into the [indiscernible] at the end of 2025, we implemented 7.2%. There are many factors that explain this increase. First of all, at the structural level, we can comment that there is an effect of the inflation rates, the consumer price index completed by 3.5% and also the effect of the exchange rate because we have some items that are under the influence of the kind of the exchange rate, for example, the chemical supplies, the IP licenses and the base or the price of energy for the independent customers. Also we have the nonregulated income and also more nonregulated income related to this assumption that the [indiscernible] structural topics that represented 59% or 60% of cost increase. Addition to this, there are some issues of the management issues related to the water transfer that Miquel also mentioned the situation of the hydrological that is [indiscernible] where we have some events in the [indiscernible] basins. And in 2024, this did not allow to do the water transfer. But in 2025, we have done some of this water transfer in order to maintain the levels of security for our reservoir. At the level of the staff, I would like to mention a few important topics. First of all, we have some regulatory changes as of August last year, we had the provision reform or the labor reform that is going to change the cost for the employers for the contributions. And there was also an increase of the minimum wage that has an effect, particularly in the structure of remunerations for the staff of the company. We also experienced more activity in the sanitary branches that are contracts related to the maintenance and when new contracts are accorded, we need to include more staffing to serve these facilities. On the other hand, concerning the electricity, we have here 2 important factors that are going in the opposite direction. First of all, we have the rates, the regulated rates that have been increased since 2024. And it is publicly known that we have the regularization of these rates, but the consumption rate has done that 8%, and this is the result of 2 major factors. First of all, we have the operational mix of the operational management in order to reduce the use of underground waters and the operational mix was 81% of surface water compared to 19% of well water or water from the underground. And then we have the biofactories where we have the treatment of the used waters that are having different projects of optimization of the projects allowing to reduce the consumption rate. And this has been amortization for 37% in the net effect that is finally only CLP 762 million. On the other hand, we have other operational costs, including the fact that the company is still developing the intensive maintenance of our facilities, either operational or everything related to the equipment in the ground also for the information systems and by applying the business support scheme to improve the operations, the customer service and the monitoring of all the facilities online. The reposition service was a normalized activity, and it is leveraged for the collections process. And we have increased our efforts in hydraulic in order to diminish the operational losses in the network. To close with respect to the cost of the company, there are 2 important issues, the evolution of the bad debt. And by the end of the fiscal year in the ratio on income, we closed in 1.2% over the income versus 1.1% in the year 2024. So this represents an increase of those CLP 992 million. It is important to mention that the evolution of the bad debt has evolved and is established stabilize. We are far from the levels observed in the pandemic and our objective is to be maintained in these levels that are the ones that we had before that period. And an effort of the company is to capture new efficiency. We have several plants that have been consolidated in the Acelera plant that allows us to incorporate this cost improvement. Here, we have projects associated from the optimization of the expenditures in bad debt as well as the purchasing management to take advantage of the bids that allowed us to have good results at the level of insurance policies and also at operational level, which was what we mentioned before, the management in terms of electricity consumption as well as other operational products, application of advanced technologies to monitor and be able to optimize the consumption. So in summary, we have an EBITDA that grows at 7.8% and we ratify then what we said on previous quarters with this positive evolution in the trajectory of the operational results of the company. At level of financial results, it increased by CLP 905 million. And here, we have effects that need to be analyzed separately, mainly 3. Increase in the financial profit, particularly due to the management and due to the cash flow increases that is associated to the fiscal year. And also, we have a lower monetary correction of our financial debt, which is denominated in units, and there is a greater variation, and this was 8% in U.S. versus 4% in 2024. And this is compensated by the increase in financial costs. Here, we have 2 explanations. One is an increase in the debt. that you know that in January, we issued a bond in our local market, and this allowed us to prepay the debt and bank loans that were at a smaller rate, and this came from the pandemic times where today, we had debt at market prices. So this combined effects explain the increase of this CLP 905 million at the level of the financial results. Regarding the final part of the results accounting, we need to mention other results. Here, we have an effect of CLP 1.3 million. And it is important to mention and remember that in 2024, we had the sales of some land lots, and this is the main factor that explains this reduction when we compare a year versus the other. And finally, at the level of income tax, there is a greater income tax due to the better results before taxes. And this consolidates an improvement in the net profit of 12.4%, and we closed the fiscal year with CLP 139 million in profits. If we go to the next slide, here, we see our solid generation of cash flow that this will be a lever to improve our financial indicators. In terms of operational cash flow, there is sustained and stable growth with the compliance of all of our obligation with our suppliers. At the level of taxes, this is a relevant aspect that occurred during the fiscal year, which was the application of accelerated depreciation, and this allowed us to have a tax return in May that complemented with the second one in November associated to taxation process of previous years, then we had lower tax burden, and this is reflected in this best cash flow of almost CLP 39 billion with respect to 2024. Another relevant aspect has to do with our investment efforts. This year, we closed in execution almost CLP 190 billion in the execution of investments. And this is translated in a paid CapEx of around CLP 171 million, which are CLP 17 billion more than in 2024. So our free cash flow generation of cash flow before dividends was CLP 187 billion, which represents 38,000 with improvement with respect to 2024. And to finish this part, as I said before, in 2024, we had sales of assets. In 2025, we only have minor issues. And the dividend paid in 2025 is greater than 2024 because we had 3 dividend payments. In January 2025, we paid a provisional dividend for '24. In April, we paid the final dividend. And in December, as Miquel said, we paid the provisory dividend that is corresponding to 2025. So this explains this variation, and we closed with a total cash flow generation, positive cash flow of almost CLP 10 billion. As we will see later on in the next slide, this explains the difference in our financial debt, which has increased because of the correction -- monetary correction in UF and also the positive cash flow for the period. And there, we can see the amortization of the bank loans that were matured in 2025, and that came mainly from the debt that we took during the COVID period. Our financial debt structure has not changed significantly. It is basically consolidated in the bonds, whether local as well as international and the IOUs and also a minor part associated to bank loans. Approximately 1/3 of our debt has a label of green and social because of the bonds in the local market as well as the international market. Almost 96% is fixed rate. So this reduces the risk and 82.5% is concentrated in debt in U.S. And there, we can see how much the international debt represents. It is in the Australian dollars, yen and Swiss francs. And in the next slide, I want to tell you about the evolution of the investment plan. I was saying before that we executed almost CLP 190 million in the fiscal year, and this is the highest in the history of the company. So where are we investing? Where are the priorities in 2025? Where were they in the development and execution of the development plan that was committed to the authorities, the renewal of networks, both of drinking water and wastewater, which was a fundamental topic in our management, also corrected maintenance of our facilities and the development of projects to improve the lifetime of these assets. There are projects that have some tariffs. The deauthorization of the La Farfana factory is finished and executing in 2025 and has an approved rate that is up to date starting in March 2026. And this has a retroactive effect starting in January 27, 2026. So these are the first projects that are being finished and then Schwerter will talk more about this. Also at the level of wastewater treatment plants, which are outside the urban radius, we are developing projects to expand the capacity and for treatment as well due to the growth of demand. To mention some examples, for example, the plant in Melipilla, [Ortalargante] and Pomaire, which were areas that have had a strong urban expansion, and we need to adapt and expand the treatment capacity of this wastewater plant in order to respond to this increase in demand. And to end, the financial aspects, as we can see in the slide, we have our financial ratios at the end of the fiscal year. And these validate and support our classification of risk, and this validates our solid financial position by the end of the fiscal year with a net EBITDA debt of 3.61. And in 2024, we have 3.74. It's a leverage level that is associated to a bond issue that is very stable, below 1.4 with ROCE that is still solid 9.6% just to mention the main financial indicators. As a summary then, this is an operational result that consolidated the positive trajectory that we had announced and expected with an efficient management over costs with projects that are being developed and a consolidation of the investment effort with concrete projects and some of them are having their tariffs. And this is translated in solid financial indicators that have ratified our risk classification at the highest level, both at the market level in domestic as well as international. Now I will leave you with Cristian Schwerter, who will give us an update of the status of the relevant investment projects associated to biocities and also the approved tariffs.

Thank you, Christian. A relevant aspect to comment is that we face an investment challenge for the next few years. And for this, we have adjusted the organization so as to maintain the investments that we need to carry out in the development plan, particularly the increase in the network renewal rate, but also the expansion of plants in the localities that Christian just mentioned. Also the projects that imply a tariff increase because it is a change in the standards. For this project and to follow up efficiently these projects, we have generated an Acelera plant, which is a cost-cutting committee that -- whose purpose is to follow up, but also facilitate the development of the project and that they are executed in terms of -- in time and with the cost. Regarding the cost estimates and the execution, we see that starting from these reviews, we have done an adjustment in the calendar. Here, we see the date -- the estimated date. This is a new estimate of the calendar of the execution. And the main change is the alternative catchment and transportation system that is displayed 2 years due to the information that Alto Maipo provided regarding the operations in the Alfalfal II plant, which is part of the transportation area required by our project. So based on this information that Alto Maipo delivered, this indicates that the central could be starting operation at the end of this year, but we have moved the operations because the complexity of the works has defined that this will take 3 years to be executed. There are minor adjustments regarding the wells, both in West Santiago and South Santiago as a function of the advance of the projects and whether they are obtaining or not the land. With respect to this calendar review, we have also reviewed the investment plan. We have optimized by reducing the cost from CPL 410 million to CLP [indiscernible] million due to a review of the design solutions and adjustment in the present prices that we have in our bidding process and also contracting strategy that allows us to estimate a downward cost trend. As an important aspect that I would like to show you some images in the next slide concerning deauthorization project that has been implemented in La Farfana in the images, you can see the sectors that have been encapsuled and allowing -- not allowing the inlet of water in the reservoirs that we're producing these orders and these have been enclosed and also systems for order management has been implemented that allowed to release into the atmosphere the gases that do not have those orders. I would like to mention also concerning the well batteries, we are also drilling -- we just finished the drilling this set of wells in Santiago. We showed you some images of that, but I would like to say that we are [indiscernible] bidding process the works of these wells, and we are also working in the 2 additional batteries of wells. I would like to show you now a video showing the progress made by these works in Santiago [indiscernible] we have already 400 liters, and we will share this with you. [Presentation]

We are currently at the Antonio Varas [Bajo] project Phase 1, one of the [indiscernible] initiatives aimed at enhancing the company's resilience in face of the growing threat of climate change. At this site, we are drilling 4 deep wells ranging from 250 to 258 meters in depth, which are intended to contribute to groundwater catchments, supplementing the company's surface water production. In the future, this will be a major facility. We will have a 5,000 cubic meter reservoir for wells lifting plant. In times of scarcity, it will allow us to supply more than 150,000 people in the western area of Santiago, providing an estimated flow rate of 400 liters per second.

Well, thank you very much for being with us in this presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Well, we will start with the first question. I will ask a question to the manager, Mr. Christian Torres, and this is related to the item other profits in the results. You mentioned that there are some guarantees associated to projects that have not been approved yet, and therefore, these are discarded, which are such projects? Sorry, microphone is not on.

First of all, I would like to comment that in this item concerning revenue and expenses. Well, now I'm on. I would like to mention that with this item, other revenues and costs different from the operations, we include 3 major concepts. First of all, we have the one related to the sale of assets that in 2024, we had some sales of relevant assets and in 2025, some minor issues. We also have issues related to costs related to restructuring or some plans of voluntary time or contribution and we have some projects that have been started. Those are the projects corresponding to investments that go into analysis. We do the basic engineering, sometimes detailed engineering, and we finally decide that this project is not profitable and doesn't get objective. And then we have the recovery of the guarantee invoices in the companies making part of this consortium, we have to issue these invoices to third parties for the execution of works in the public areas. And when these invoices have a seniority of over 4 years, they are eliminated from the accounting system, and we recognize the associated revenue. We had CLP 1 billion related to the recovery of these guarantee invoices. And in this particular cases is related to this project.

Thank you very much, Christian. There is a second question that I would like to ask you so that you can help us in this regard regarding the financial results and the expenses for administration and sales. There is a drop in the indemnizations concerning the previous period of time. And this -- we wonder if these levels would be sustainable in time concerning also in this area, the salaries are observed in an increase of 6% concerning the previous period of time. And we would like to know the reason for that.

Well, I will start with the last part of the question to reinforce what I mentioned during the presentation, there are some labor-related costs that are increased because of the reforms, labor reforms and the provision or provision reform. And here, for example, we have to take into account the minimum wage that has the legal round. And then we have a new contract that have been accorded for the maintenance of the facilities, and this is reflected in the increased staffing. Concerning now these indemnizations, we can say that there are 2 effects. One is related to the accounting and the provision or the reserve for the actuarial. And we have some agreements with the unions establishing the conditions related to the elimination of some staff and we review the actuarial tables and we have to do the review related to these reserves. And on the other hand, we have some indemnizations that can be specific, and this is indemnizations that are related to this and then has to be reviewed year after year because we have to update all the variables making part of this actuarial calculation of the table based on each service year.

Thank you, Christian. We have a new question here for you. And this is for Miquel Sans. How do you think that the international circumstances will impinge on the business in the financial point of view, the disruptions from the logistics point of view and [indiscernible].

Thank you, Denisse. We will start with the part that will be more -- less important in the short and medium term. On one hand, we have the financing that in the present year, not have to issue and we see that the market is open to us, and we don't see impacts in this regard. Concerning now the supply chain, we are monitoring the situation because this is evolving. And this is changing every week with the outlook that we have for the medium, short and long term in relation to the war conflict. And therefore, we see that there is a potential impact, but I would say that it is medium or moderate. And these are the specific categories related to the supply chain comprising the chemicals and other some items that are under control, including the fuel. And as I said that there is a risk of disruption. We see that this risk is mitigated for now because we have the strategic risk always considered for many months with sufficient stock and also with the production -- local production of the main chemicals. And therefore, we don't see that in the short term, we should envisage an impact for us in terms of price or the continuance of the services. There are also some other strategic contracts that we have also some polynomial effects that are reviewed on a quarterly basis or every term or a yearly basis. And in this way, we can observe all the pressures from the costs. And if we had a pressure on the prices, there would also be a direct impact on the polynomial adjustment of the prices, and we have this coverage for the cost and the revenues. Once again, we have strategic stocks in our facilities and the facilities of our suppliers. And although the monitoring is done on a weekly basis, we don't see now some relevant effects for our operations or for our costs.

Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer. Now we have another question which should be the main focuses for the cost control to reach the objectives of the medium term in order to have more convergence of the EBITDA margin. We expect that some of the effects of this management -- cost management will be materialized in 2026.

Well, we have commented this in some and in previous presentation. So 1 year ago, we have the plan Acelera, which is rather focused on the efficiencies with any financial impact and an impact we have already observed in 2025. That was the first year of this plan. So we see in a positive manner the evolution it has undergone and the impact that these initiatives that can have in the next coming years. And to this, we have a strategy in the CapEx. Schwerter said this before, we have optimized the investments and the same for the OpEx in the bidding processes with 2 major focuses. First of all, to give the certainty to the providers to the suppliers and to find new suppliers that can help us in this optimization process. In 2026, we will continue to do savings with a transformation plan that is very extensive. Not all of these savings will be materialized in 2026. Some of them are medium, short and long term, but by 2030, we see that there is a recovery of the margin. And then 2026, we are taking the first steps, but not so drastic from the point of view of change, but we envisage that this will be stronger by 2030.

Once again, thank you very much, and Miquel and I will ask you another question that is posed by an analyst now concerning the issuance of debt in the Asian market, the private placement that was done in Japanese yen and Australian dollars. So we would like to know which was the rationale to issue this in these market places and in this kind of currencies.

Well, in 2022, the overall market maybe was existing that was very expensive, but was not as existing as it is today over a year now, the local marketplace has a depth that is similar to the one we knew back in 2020. In 2022, when we had -- we needed it to go for the markets -- the local markets with not giving the levels of cost or debt rate that we needed. And one of the reasons to have this international rating, as I said before, was to have this international debt that gives access to many international markets when the market is closed or stagnated with not the optimal prices. In 2022, we were able to issuing the private markets in Australia and Japan, then in Switzerland and then we'll be paying back to Chile because it was the best option at that time, and we monitor the different marketplaces, and we have this flexibility to issuing many of them. And it doesn't have any effect for us. When we issue in Japan, we issue it in Japanese terms. But when we convert it to the U.S., it's the same as investing in the local market, but it gave us optimal cost compared to issuing a local bond at that time.

Thank you, Miquel. Now I would like to give the floor to Cristian Schwerter. We have a question that has to do with the present political context. We have seen that the new government has removed environmental decrease. So the question is to understand whether this creates uncertainties as a company regarding the processes that we are carrying out for the upcoming projects or this should not have a direct impact in the development of our CapEx plan.

Thank you, Denisse. It is important to mention that in the battery of projects or the group of tariff projects, the only one that has an [EIA] is the alternative production that had already -- it's an environmental qualification. So there's no contingency. But the rest of the projects due to their size and characteristics don't have to go into the system. The projects that do and that should have a review or revision or an environmental negotiation is the expansion of the plants in certain localities, and this needs to be reviewed. There could be something there. But in general, what we are seeing is needs that will happen at the end of the 5-year period. For example, the Melipilla plant that is pending as well as El Monte, they would have time to achieve this -- the obtaining of the environmental permits.

Thank you, Cristian for your answer. We continue with the next question is for Miquel Sans again. And it has to do with the cost of the investments. And it says, regarding the reduction of the investment plan cost that we have mentioned in this presentation, could you specify the types of costs associated to the investments that have a greater reduction? This lower cost, would it imply an effect in the tariff associated to each of these projects?

Thank you, Denisse. When we talk about the reduction of CLP 400 billion to CLP 365 billion, we are talking about 2 projects with additional tariffs. And what we are working on or Cristian Schwerter is working on is to look for the best option. Years ago, when we estimated those CLP 400 billion, it was a technology, a specific technology or a specific solution. For example, in the past year, we have been analyzing other technologies, not necessarily for these projects, but for example, for the expansion of wastewater plant. These technologies we hadn't used before, and we have researched and we have seen that these are technologies that are just as efficient as the ones that we have now, and they have a more adjusted cost. For example, in the cost of the wells, optimizing the design means to well -- to drill 1 well less because the flow rate we will obtain is obtained with slightly less wells. So some of the optimizations that we have done are these, and we want to optimize the expenses both in CapEx and OpEx. But our vision today is this change of CLP 400 billion to CLP 385 billion. The rates or the tariffs won't be affected by this change, although the cost reduction is more for us in the contrary case, both in the past as in the future, this does not imply an increase in the tariffs.

Thank you, Miquel, for your full response. We have several questions amongst the participants regarding the announcement of the proposal to increase the payout from 70% to 75%. Some of these questions are, given the ambitious projections that we have regarding investments explained by the BioCiudad development projects, how can we explain or propose to increase from 70% to 75% for the results of 2025, also considering the leeway that we have in the level that we have of our covenants because why wasn't this payout greater or why increase it? There are other questions that have to do with what to expect regarding the payout for the next years in this cycle.

To go a step back, -- in March 20 last year, we issued a comment saying that we would propose to the Board a payout in 2024 of 70%. And this was a vision of a mid CapEx between '25 and '30 of CLP 250 billion. And we indicated at that time that the Board made the commitment to permanently review the definition of the annual payout as a function of the production and also the advance of the financial indicators. The Board at that week, given the update of these projections and also given the cash flow of the year, which was a little bit more positive than what we estimated initially proposes to increase that 5% between 70 -- from 70% to 75% for this year. And once again, the commitment of the Board is to evaluate the situation annually to properly pay out the shareholders. So year-by-year, we will start making that decision as well.

Thank you. We have a last question. And with this, we will close the event, and it has to do with the water transfers. Could you help us understand how the transfer of waters could be transferred to the tariffs according to the [indiscernible] tariffing process. Is this something that is being reflected in the income of the last quarter of 2025? Or is it something that we will see later on in the financial statements?

The water transfers, the agreement of the [indiscernible] tariff process has in operation 2 wells of this drought. And once we have used all of our water sources, these transfers will be transferred to the tariff. In 2025, we had to resort to these transfers once we used our different sources. But at some time, there were conditions where the -- those that did the irrigation had excess of water in the river due to maintenance of the canals. And we prefer to use that water that comes from the river, the excess water and not use the waters of our wells because of an operational financial balance that we considered that was optimal at that time. So from the transfer of 2025, there is a part that will have an income associated to the tariff and another one that isn't because it has to do with operational optimizations. Having said this, in the close of 2025, we had the best estimate of income associated to these transfers. Right now, we are finishing -- establishing the way this will work with the regulator. This has been a process that took longer than others, but we hope that this is the first time that we use this mechanism. So we are taking more time so that it is well designed with all the details. As I was saying, most of the income in 2025 and any small adjustment will be corrected in 2026, but we consider that it won't be anything very relevant.

Thank you, Miquel Sans. Thank you to our speaker, Christian Torres and Cristian Schwerter. Once again, we remind you that this presentation will be available in our web page so that you can review anything that you want. Any additional question that was not asked in the event, but any other questions that you might have, please contact the Investor Relations team, and we will gladly respond to all your consultations. And we invite you to the next event on the financial results. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, and goodbye.